Lisburn-based digital health company Cirdan Ltd are a leading provider of informatics and imaging solutions that speed up and enhance the diagnosis of patients.
We spoke to Rebecca Fitton (Interim Head of Marketing) and Dr Hugh Cormican (CEO) about their plans to expand into the North American market and how J.R.R. Tolkien inspired the naming of the company!
Cirdan Ltd are global leaders in laboratory information systems, focused on helping pathology laboratories meet their digital health needs. Cirdan were the first company to market a product focused on seamlessly collecting both text and images in the diagnosis of patients. They offer a complete end to end laboratory solution through the development of hardware and software tools, including their core products ULTRA Enterprise LIS and CoreLlite.
Cirdan are named after the voyager elf created by J.R.R. Tolkien. CEO Dr Hugh Cormican told us that, like a voyager, Cirdan must go to distant shores to make themselves known, and the employees liked the idea that elves live for an exceptionally long time! Cirdan have their headquarters in Lisburn with offices in Canada and Australia and provide 24/7, 365-day support to their seventy global customers. During their start-up journey, they received grant funding from Invest NI and Venture investments which include the Clarendon Fund Partners and Kernel Capital. Cirdan are part of Smart Nano NI, a consortium of local Northern Ireland technology companies and research institutions, who have recently received additional funding to develop game-changing advanced prototyping and smart manufacturing methods to deliver modern technologies.
Rebecca initially joined Cirdan as a placement student and has progressed with the company, where she is currently the Interim Head of Marketing.
“We are very keen to advance the field. Our staff are passionate about it, and innovative. Cirdan are constantly looking for new ways in which we can improve on our products to help meet clinicians needs.” Rebecca is also involved in organising Cirdan’s hugely successful annual Pathology Horizons conference, which is focused on the future of pathology and exploring the future advancements in the field.
Hugh is the CEO of Cirdan and leads the strategic direction ensuring staff can access the resources to progress their goals.
He emphasised the technically skilled and talented workforce in Northern Ireland. Cirdan take on several placement students every year from diverse backgrounds across Queens University, Ulster University and The Open University. In partnership with Queens University, Cirdan offer Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs) and this year are delighted to announce that together with Queen’s University Belfast and their KTP Associate and Senior AI Engineer, Jonathan Armstrong, they have been selected as the winners of the Best UK KTP project 2022 by Innovate UK.
Next year Cirdan plan to expand their business into the North American market.
Hugh said, “We are part of that wider life-tech group in Northern Ireland which hopes to be the economic power of the future. I am optimistic in terms of the possibility for us to develop into a global company offering solutions for global digital pathology challenges.”
