SEncIL - Solving Pharma’s Stickiest Manufacturing Problem

There’s a class of drugs that remains largely unused, held back by a manufacturing challenge no one has solved yet.

In liquid form, medicines are absorbed faster in the human body and enable effective dosing at lower concentrations. But those same benefits make them difficult to produce at scale.

Dublin-based start-up (opens in a new window)SEncIL, part of Conception X Cohort 8, thinks it can change that. The team of researchers has developed a technology that turns liquid drugs into polymer-encapsulated powders.

“Liquid drugs are well known as being promising, but because of their sticky and viscous nature, they’re pretty much ignored by the pharma industry,” explains (opens in a new window)Patrick Keady, co-founder of SEncIL.

“Our method allows us to take advantage of the benefits of liquid drugs by turning them into solid products. Drugs can be designed to have maximum efficiency, without any worry about the potential limitations of their physical state. We think this could be applicable anywhere from early-stage discovery to later-stage scale-up.”

Having developed an interest in medicinal chemistry as an undergraduate, Patrick is now a PhD student at University College Dublin through the (opens in a new window)Centre for Doctoral Training in Transformative Pharmaceutical Technologies.

Pictured are, Dr Michael Stocker, Research Fellow, UCD School of Chemical and Bioprocess Engineering and Patrick Keady, PhD student, UCD School of Chemical and Bioprocess Engineering and members of the SEncIL team. (Source: Conception X).

It was while interviewing to join the research team developing the technology behind SEncIL that Patrick first felt the spark to become an entrepreneur.

“It was mentioned that I might have a chance to get involved in commercialising the research. I came in at a really good time for that, just as we were starting to push in that direction.”

Patrick has since been focused on exploring the technology’s commercial potential.

“We’ve been pushing as far as we can, seeing what classes of drugs and types of treatment we can get involved in. We started off with small molecules, and we’ve been building up to larger peptides to address a lot of the interesting new areas in pharma.”

SEncIL joined Conception X with the support of NovaUCD and (opens in a new window)Enterprise Ireland. Patrick says the experience has been invaluable in transforming SEncIL from academic research into a promising biotech startup.

“They’ve massively expanded our reach and network,” he says. “I’ve developed a better idea of who our target customers are and what our route to market looks like. There are a lot of potential avenues to explore when you are an early-stage company, and Conception X really helped us narrow down exactly what it is we should be looking towards.”

SEncIL is now preparing for its next phase, lining up pharmaceutical industry partnerships and raising investment capital.

“Pitching to a room of investors at the Conception X Demo Day led to a lot of traction for us. We’re in a strong position for the next stage of SEncIL’s growth.”

Published originally in Conception X’s January 2026 newsletter.

ENDS

27 January 2026

For further information contact Micéal Whelan, Communications and Media Relations Manager, UCD Research and Innovation, e: (opens in a new window)miceal.whelan@ucd.ie.