Ireland’s world-renowned research centers link scientific endeavors with commercial ones. The ongoing integration of the pharmaceutical and food industries has inspired a new generation of driven Irish entrepreneurs.

For example, within University College Cork’s microbiome research ecosystem, a team of researchers founded Atlantia Food Clinical Trials. Since the company’s foundation, it has quickly become a one-stop shop for clinical trials focusing on functional foods and nutraceuticals, and expanded to be a full-service contract research organization delivering end-to-end solutions to a global client base including some of the world’s largest companies.

Founder and CEO of Atlantia Food Clinical Trials, Andrea Doolan, stated, “Cork’s unique ecosystem nurtures entrepreneurs, and the support from the business community was an invaluable asset during our growth journey. We are an example of a spin-out success story thanks to our highly skilled in-house team of multidisciplinary experts. We conduct trials across food, supplements, ingredients, and beverages at our dedicated facilities. We bridge the gap in the market for our clients between preventative medicine and traditional drug therapies in areas such as probiotics and microbiome-based therapeutics. Our specialized methodology can help inform consumers that not all products are created equally. We also coordinate multi-center, multinational studies in new approaches like bio-therapeutics focusing on gut bacteria. Our full suite of clinical trial services are completed in-house.”

Barry Skillington, CCO at Atlantia Food Clinical Trials, added, “We strive to improve human health and wellbeing through nutrition research and to do everything in our power to ensure our clients achieve their objectives. As we approach our 10-year anniversary, Atlantia is expanding its footprint in the USA. We have a new state-of-the-art clinic in Chicago that offers the best quality human clinical research at very competitive costs and efficient speeds.” Irish startups like Atlantia Food Clinical Trials are increasingly demonstrating that small businesses mean ‘big business.’