MEDICAL DEVICE firm Boston Scientific has unveiled a €91 million investment plan for its plant in Galway.

The US group, already one of the largest employers in the State, will create 45 jobs as a result of the injection, announced yesterday.

The decision to invest in Ireland follows the company’s acquisition earlier this year of start-up firm Labcoat. Also based in Galway, Labcoat has developed technology that allows coronary stents – wire meshe tubes inserted into a person’s arteries following angioplasty procedures – to be coated with drugs in a more targeted manner.

It will also allow such coating to be biodegradable, reducing the long-term requirement for anti-clotting drugs which exists under existing stent technology.

More significantly, the company says it wants to get the Galway plant involved at an earlier stage in the research, development and innovation process. This is seen as a significant boost for the Government which has targeted such projects in an attempt to turn Ireland into a “knowledge economy”.

The Government feels that companies taking the decision to locate RD resources in the State are less likely to relocate their foreign direct investment than companies which use the State as a low-cost European manufacturing or outsourcing base.

The investment, which is supported by IDA Ireland, was welcomed yesterday by Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Mary Coughlan as “an enormous boost of confidence in Ireland’s RDI [research, development and innovation] abilities”.

The company said the “significant investment” would enable Boston Scientific in Galway to take “a major step-up in technology, scale and technical innovation for RD and innovation” at the site.

Hank Kucheman, president of Boston Scientific’s cardiology business, was in Galway for the announcement. He said the investment built on the company’s “positive and long-established presence here and further demonstrates our commitment to the country”.

“The performance and success of our Galway site, the high calibre of talented people in Ireland and the country’s commitment to RDI . . . gave us confidence that this was the correct setting for this important investment.”

As a result of the announcement, RD carried out at the Galway unit will move from late stage development to “an earlier, innovative stage, requiring the development of new competencies and skill sets to deepen the facility’s technology capabilities so it can create new pioneering technology”, the company said.

The US market for drug-coated stents was about €1.8 billion last year, according to Boston Scientific’s most recent annual report, with the company taking 46 per cent of that business. The US accounts for slightly more than half of all stent procedures.