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A GALWAY MEDICAL-TECH firm which created a ground-breaking vaccine by inhaler is set to double its workforce to 1,000.
Aerogen plans to hire an additional 500 staff after its aerosol inhaler was used in China’s booster programme.
Shaped like a coffee cup, the inhaler is the first of its kind to deliver a vaccine directly into the airways, removing the need for injections.
Aerogen chief executive John Power said the firm has probably doubled its workforce to 500 over the last three years, and will probably do the same again over the next three years.
Last week, China announced it was relaxing the most severe elements of its controversial zero-Covid policy.
Mr Power maintains his firm – recently named Ireland’s Technology Exporter of the Year at the Asia Matters Business Awards – played a “significant” role in this.
He said the absence of a needle in China’s new booster programme, using the Dangan-based firm’s technology, means greater numbers, especially the elderly, are now willing to get a booster.
Approved for use in 11 of China’s 31 provinces, it also uses just a fifth of the vaccine compared with the amount needed by the hypodermic method.
The deal to deliver booster doses developed by Chinese vaccine company CanSinoBio is worth “tens of millions” to Aerogen – and Mr Power expects additional orders as European drug firms begin to show an interest.
“The more people you can convince to get vaccinated, the better chance you have of containment [of the virus],” he said.
“This is seen as a pretty significant step on the route to China opening up. It could really be a game changer.”
Mr Power said doing business in China presented “unique” challenges.
“There are plenty of opportunities but you can get burnt if you don’t work with the right people,” he said.
“The important thing is you have got to be well-partnered in China. In our case, CanSinoBio are a publicly listed company – they are certainly not fly-by-night but are regarded as leaders in vaccine science in China and internationally.”
Aerogen was honoured at the Asia Matters Business Awards in Dublin, organised every year by Irish think tank, Asia Matters.
Asia Matters’ chief executive, Martin Murray said: “The Government has stated that it wants two-way trade with Asia to reach 100 billion euro by 2025.
“The quality of this year’s entrants to our awards shows that goal is certainly achievable.”
Current open positions with the firm can be found here.
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It should be you have to be over 100 and accompanied by a parent!!!!!
@BAAB: that’s brilliant!
Fantastic law. Ireland is to greedy for the tax.
Why can we just make it illegal to buy cigarettes for anyone born after 2019?
@Nomad: Thats a very good idea
@Nomad: anyone born after 2001 would be better … but I’m liking this Hawaii idea
@Nomad: Ban the sale of alcohol to anyone under 120
@Simon Carroll: now that is just stupid.
Will just make the price on the black market go up
@shellakybooky: it will, but you can’t make public health policy based on wether the black market is going to do something. As a smoker, I’d love a ban in Ireland.
@Joe Travers: Would you turn to the black market?
The problem with them on the black market is what’s in them and not the loss of revenue.
Because the world has SUCH a great record of successfully banning drugs. It NEVER leads to more dangerous products, it NEVER funnels enormous amounts of money into organised crime, it NEVER leads to insane laws where millions of people are imprisoned for non-violent crimes at a cost of billions, it NEVER leads to a situation where the police get ever more militant leading to situations like where teams that wouldn’t look out of place storming Osama’s hideout storm houses in the suburbs guns blazing just to prevent the risk that some low level dealer might flush his stash.
Yep, this is a great idea that has never failed before.
@The Bob: Yeah, you’re right. We tried stuff in a different situation before and it didn’t work. We should just do nothing.
This is cigarettes we’re talking about – yes, very addictive but you’re never going to get people chasing them the same way as other drugs. The effect of tobacco just isn’t enough crack to warrant it. There would be some residual black market, but the main effect would be to make it entirely socially unacceptable to smoke and make it very difficult for young people to start smoking in the first place.
The government would never introduce such a law. They make great money out of other people’s addiction.
@Tony Murphy: They lose that money as the healthcare costs outweigh the tax intake.
@Robert Conneely: That is very unlikely to be true. In the UK conservative estimates put the monatary revenue gain to the excheuqer at £6billion. https://fullfact.org/economy/does-smoking-cost-much-it-makes-treasury/
@Robert Conneely: 6million people die each year worldwide from smoking related diseases. 8.2 million die from cancer which 1.7 million is from lung cancer. Basically my point is the whole health care for smokers costing a fortune story is total bullshit and an excuse to keep rising the price of tobacco. I realise they’re bad for you but this whole costing the state a fortune I don’t believe in the slightest.
@Hardly Normal: valid point. Many smokers gave health insurance despite massive tariffs , those who are suing at high rates are most likely from poorer countries with zero access to poor medical care and smoking unregulated tobacco added to all this one has to factor in the cost of care of those in the West ( reducing by the year) that’s offset by those who continue to smoke and do not require full time care from the damage of smoking and have paid massive taxes on their smoking habit
Brilliant ..and rightly so .. the smoking and indeed e-smoking industries creaming billions off people around the globe. The costs to fix and repair people is then mind boggling. This fella has seen it all first hand and knows the consequences for many. Sure it would be tough for some to get off the oul schmokes ..i was a smoker myself for years .. tried and tried eventually did it .. one of the best things i ever did ..suck the life right out of you just like the ciggie companies do
Smoking is bad for your health that’s a fact, I don’t smoke now, but I did once and if people that are adults want to smoke, it’s their own business.
It’s reasonable to provide factual information on the health risks and let them decide for themselves. Just because someone is a doctor, it doesn’t automatically make their opinion the basis for legislation or something that should be accepted in place of personal freedom.
It’s a slippery slope of the removal of the personal rights to eat or drink to excess, skateboard, skydive take part in extreme sport etc.
We all have one shot a life and it if we can’t even have the freedom to make stupid decisions that ultimately effect ourselves, what’s the point and where does the nanny state mentality end?
@David Van-Standen: plenty of dangerous things are illegal or controlled. Driving without a seat belt, walking on motorways, driving without a license, carrying knives, guns, crack cocaine, codeine, morphine, the list goes on. Sometimes laws do need to be made to protect people from themselves, unfortunately having all the information doesn’t always work.
@Niamh Ní Caiside: your freedom to behave recklessly in respect of your own life can impose a huge societal cost e.g rehabilitation of those injured in car accident.
Can you still bring them in to Hawaii from other states or countries?
@GClare: you will be mugged for 20 Major
Brillant idea. We should follow suit. Wean ourselves off cigs and tax over 5 years. In long run we, and particularly children would benefit. Bring it on.
I like to have a choice. I think you got that with abortion. Same here.
Could we get that here?
Once again people cheer as the state steps in to tell us what we can and cannot put into our own bodies….all this is going to do is drive tobacco sales underground and fuel crime. Raising taxes on tobacco products and pumping it into education is always unpopular but it is the best option to stop people smoking not some ridiculous ban.
Can We do the same with Alcohol or is it only one poisonous habit that we can attack?
@Simon Carroll: If you have a problem with either, you can quit and not wait for someone to hold your hand.
Not a bad way around the costly legal issues of an outright ban. It would still take years to wash out the illegal element, but it puts the writing on the wall for the tobacco industry.
Taxation is not a sincere method.
Nor is all the shaming about heatlhcare cost, everybody that doesnt die suddenly carries end of life costs, that is everyone eventually.
I need a fag after reading that
@Colm Walsh: I’d say you’re a howl on a night out!
If we’re going to ban anything it should be alcohol first it’s the most dangerous widely used drug, it costs us a lot more money to our public services the cigarettes
Iv also never heard of any smoking 20 John Player Blue and then acting like an idiot causing fights, killing people, been generally antisocial or been a danger in our roads
Smokers stink of death.
Lol, never happen.
That could do the job our revenue people won’t do:
“Stop the illegal selling of cigarettes and tobacco on Moore Street Dublin”
Millions of revenue lost every week.
The law is an Ass:
Increase the legal age by 1 year every year might be a way to eventually ban it here. Would also cushion the blow of lost revenue. Would take a long time to see the rewards though.
@Stephen Woods: excellent idea my good man. Take a bow!
I’ve been suggesting something similar for years, mine not so drastic but to raise the age by 1 year every year and to issue ‘smokers cards’ to those over the age of 18 who currently smoke and only allow those people to purchase cigarettes until everyone who is allowed smoke is eventually dead in 70 or so years.
@Niamh Ní Caiside: what??? Smokers cards and slowly eradicate the smokers? Please never get involved in politics or any other important decision making process
@Niamh Ní Caiside: sorry Niamh another guy called Steve got a comment in before you about raising the age by one year every year. You didn’t tell him by any chance, did you?
As a smoker It can’t come quick enough here. Horrible habit and strain on the system. But the taxes say it all and the Goverment would never do it. Pity As It should be done.
With all that’s going on in the whole world these days , this is news , give me a break you clowns
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