Galway start-up receives €1.1m EIT Health backing for ear surgery endoscope

Galway-based start-up Tympany Medical, in collaboration with NUI Galway, Leiden University Hospital and YES! Delft has received €1.1 million in EIT Health support to develop a new endoscope for ear surgery.

€500,000 of the funding derives from a new Start-up Amplifier instrument aimed at bolstering start-ups and their innovations.

The EIT Health Start-up Amplifier launched this year to give top start-ups the opportunity to play a key role in EIT Health Innovation Projects, with the aim of rapid market penetration of innovative products and services.

The Tympany-led consortium is developing EyeVU, a sterile endoscope for complex ear surgery that allows surgeons to gain the benefits of endoscopic visualisation while maintaining their two-handed operating technique. Currently, the EyeVU is undergoing pre-clinical validation in collaboration with Leiden University Hospital. 

Having successfully competed in EIT Health programmes, including the Headstart competition and YES! Delft Accelerator, along with the completion of the Enterprise Ireland Commercialisation Fund in NUI Galway, the medtech start-up has been expanding since its inception in 2016.

In this latest round of support, Tympany is set to use the funding to help achieve key milestones for the device. 

According to Tympany’s CEO, Dr Liz McGloughlin, the support will help with design freeze and submission for regulatory approval in the US in early 2022.

Dr McGloughlin said: “EIT Health’s Start-up Amplifier marks the first equity-based investment into Tympany Medical and will provide the company with the ability to continue working rapidly to reach milestones despite the challenges of 2020. The Amplifier will allow Tympany Medical to expedite key stages of developmental tasks including rapid prototyping and finalisation of product for regulatory submission.

“EIT Health has allowed us to connect with key European partners who are supporting the pre-clinical evaluation and validation of the product as well as opening networks to other European Healthcare markets.”