Leonora O'Brien

Leonora O'Brien is an Irish pharmacist and entrepreneur.[1][2][3] Having worked in pharmacy regulation,[1] she is the founder and chief executive officer of Pharmapod,[4][1][5] a cloud-platform for pharmacists and physicians to monitor safety of dispensing processes and drive the safe dispensing of medicines.[6][7][8][2][3] O'Brien has won a number of awards[3] for her business endeavours and is a leading voice in the field of women in business.[9][10][11][12][4][13]

Early life and career

O'Brien was born in Castlerea, County Roscommon.[8] O'Brien qualified as a pharmacist.[9] She worked in pharmacy regulation and policy development in both Ireland and the European Union.[8] She moved out of Pharmacy regulation into the private sector in 2012, having noticed a gap in the market for inter-pharmacy interaction.[3][1][14]

Pharmapod

O'Brien developed the business case for Pharmapod in the 12-week-long LaunchPad entrepreneur hub at the National Digital Research Centre (NDRC) in Dublin in early 2012.[15] O'Brien founded Pharmapod in November 2012, as an online tool which assists pharmaceutical dispensaries (including doctors)[11] to keep track of and report anomalies, which can cause fatalities.[3][6] By 2014, Pharmapod was operating in Ireland, the UK (in a deal with the NHS)[6] and Kenya (a focus was put on the developing world, where the product was considered very useful, especially with a view to capturing trends in counterfeit medicines),[16] with an employee base of 10 people.[16][8] Seeking up to €5 million in December 2014,[17] by the end of 2017, Pharmapod had raised over €1.8 million in capital, with both institutional and angel investors.[2]

Awards and prizes

References
  1. O'Dea, Ann (11 March 2014). "Women Invent: 100 top women in science, technology, engineering and maths – Part 1". Silicon Republic. Archived from the original on 28 August 2016. Retrieved 2 November 2017.
  2. Keogh, Olive (25 August 2016). "New Innovators: Starting up and keeping going...Irish entrepreneurial spirit alive and kicking". Irish Times.
  3. Doyle, Carmel (9 July 2013). "Irish start-up Pharmapod on mission to bring pharmacies into the digital age". Silicon Republic. Archived from the original on 1 November 2017. Retrieved 2 November 2017.
  4. Huang, Gregory T. (3 November 2014). "Dublin's Startup Commish Brings Lesson in Buzz From NYC". Xconomy. Archived from the original on 6 November 2014. Retrieved 2 November 2017.
  5. "CEOs, entrepreneurs, and managers short--listed for Image businesswoman of year awards". Irish Independent. 29 October 2014. Retrieved 2 November 2017.
  6. O'Donoghue, Paul (28 September 2014). "Irish tech girls rule, ok?". Irish Independent. Retrieved 2 November 2017.
  7. Dromey, Trish (13 May 2013). "Pharmapod has its eye on EU expansion". Irish Examiner. Archived from the original on 19 June 2013. Retrieved 2 November 2017.
  8. "Entrepreneur pharmacist is driven by patient safety". Irish independent. 24 June 2014. Retrieved 2 November 2017.
  9. "Offering support to ladies who launch". The Times. 15 January 2017.
  10. Bushnell, Niamh (17 February 2017). "Notes From The Commish: Women, tech and hell". DublinGlobe. Archived from the original on 27 February 2017. Retrieved 2 November 2017 – via IrishCentral.
  11. Sweeney, Tanya (16 April 2015). "Are women really as powerful in Irish business as we think?". Irish Independent.
  12. "Solving gender gap in tech will help fix skill shortage". Irish Times. 25 September 2015. Retrieved 2 November 2017.
  13. "Clinicians wanted for health tech start-up programme". Irish Medical Times. 10 January 2015. Retrieved 2 November 2017.
  14. Newenham, Pamela (23 November 2015). "Conference for female entrepreneurs on funding". Irish Times. Retrieved 2 November 2017.
  15. "26 outstanding start-ups that smash the 'boys' club' stereotype". Silicon Republic. 17 February 2016. Archived from the original on 1 July 2016. Retrieved 2 November 2017.
  16. "VIDEO: Kilkenny Group CEO named IMAGE Businesswoman of the Year 2014". Newstalk. 25 November 2014. Retrieved 2 November 2017.
  17. McCabe, Sarah (7 December 2014). "Pharmapod plans to raise up to €5m from new investors". irish Independent. Retrieved 2 November 2017.
  18. Hunt, Gordon (9 February 2017). "Irish founder of Theya Healthcare makes Cartier award shortlist". Silicon Republic. Archived from the original on 9 February 2017.
  19. Armstrong, John (13 April 2017). "Irish Entrepreneur Named Laureate For Europe At 2017 Cartier Women's Initiative Awards". "Irish Tech News". Archived from the original on 16 April 2017. Retrieved 2 November 2017.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.