Global engineering firm TE Connectivity has opened a €5m medical device prototyping centre in Galway.
The Swiss-headquartered US company, which has been in Ireland for 43 years, already employs around 1,300 in the region.
The new Propelus Prototype Center will allow TE to design and manufacture medical devices at greater speed, using engineering technology including 3D printing, the company said.
TE claims its devices are used by 120 patients every minute.
Its existing campus at Parkmore West in Galway produces coronary stents to open clogged heart arteries and neurovascular coils used in the treatment of brain aneurysms.
TE said the new centre will allow it to make a larger range of medical devices for the world's leading medical technology brands.
“The principle is simple – getting high quality prototypes into customers’ hands as quickly as possible,” said the new centre’s director of operations, Mark Gill.
“By improving the speed of product development and manufacturing, TE will help customers innovate and iterate advanced treatments at a more efficient pace, ultimately transforming patient care for the better.”
TE Connectivity specialises in making connectivity and sensor solutions for the transport, industrial, medical, energy, data sectors, as well as home use.
It employs more than 85,000 people worldwide, with customers in around 140 countries.
The new centre will be built at TE’s existing Parkmore West facility in Galway, which Mr Gill said was “the logical choice” due to its “global reputation for outsourced design and manufacturing services, as well as its standing as the largest metals fabricator for minimally invasive devices worldwide”.
"With some of our brightest talent in Galway, customers will be able to co-create with our engineers first-hand to see innovation come to life,” he said.
