Eye therapeutics start-up OcuHealth wins UCD’s 2025 VentureLaunch award
Posted 1 December, 2025
Dr Alison Reynolds, UCD School of Veterinary Medicine and a fellow of the UCD Conway Institute, and a member of the OcuHealth team, winner of the 2025 UCD VentureLaunch Accelerator Programme Award Credit: Paul Sharp/Sharppix
(opens in a new window)OcuHealth, an emerging eye therapeutics start-up, wins UCD 2025 VentureLaunch Accelerator Programme.
Pioneering a “once-a-day” eye drop that offers significantly improved treatment options compared with current therapies, the company’s delivery technology can be used to treat many different eye diseases.
Eye drops are the preferred form of delivery to the eye, with over 90% of ophthalmic drugs available in drop formulations.
However, drops are quickly washed away by the eye and this means that drops need to be administered frequently throughout the day and higher doses need to be delivered to get sufficient drug absorbed in a short window.
To address this issue OcuHealth has developed a patented Sustained Microemulsion release Technology (SMrT) to allow greater delivery of hydrophobic and hydrophilic drugs, small molecules and monoclonal antibodies to the front of the eye, over an extended period, significantly increasing drug absorption.
A joint University College Dublin and South East Technological University (SETU) project, the company has received €700k in funding through the Enterprise Ireland Commercialisation Fund and is being supported by technology transfer offices at SETU and NovaUCD.
(opens in a new window)Dr Alison Reynolds, UCD School of Veterinary Medicine and a fellow of the UCD Conway Institute, completed the VentureLaunch Programme on behalf of OcuHealth.
“OcuHealth is focused on developing new ways of delivering therapeutics to the eye in a sustained manner which will benefit patients and clinicians,” she said.
“We are excited to explore how our platform technology can be used to improve current treatment options and look forward to future opportunities to partner with pharmaceutical companies in the eye therapeutics space.”
Adding: “I would like to acknowledge the excellent support provided by NovaUCD, the VentureLaunch programme facilitators, and particularly the other VentureLaunch participants, especially for their invaluable feedback and advice received throughout the programme.”
Dr Laurence Fitzhenry, Head of Faculty, Science and Computing (Waterford) and Principal Investigator of the Ocular Therapeutics Research Group, SETU said OcuHealth would now be seeking to raise €3.5 million in funding to progress its patented nanoformulations to first-in-human trials in 2028.
“It’s an exciting moment for us as founders as we work to bring new, patient-focused ocular therapies closer to clinical reality.”
Other members of the OcuHealth team include Dr Muhammad Sarfraz, Department of Science, SETU and commercial lead, John Lynch.
Simon Factor, Head of New Ventures, NovaUCD; Professor Kate Robson Brown, UCD Vice-President for Research, Innovation and Impact; Dr Alison Reynolds; Dr Diarmuid O'Brien, CEO, Taighde Éireann and Liam Cronin, Director of Innovation, UCD Credit: Paul Sharp/Sharppix
The annual VentureLaunch Accelerator Programme, run by NovaUCD, aims to support the creation and launch of sustainable and profitable new start-ups emerging from UCD.
Its main objective is to equip participants with the knowledge, skills and understanding that will be required to work as part of a team leading a new commercial venture.
The programme consists of eight workshops that are a mixture of taught content and interactive sessions delivered by external experts as well as involving talks from entrepreneurs. Participants also gained expert mentoring on marketing, finance and funding, sales and pitching to investors.
Liam Cronin, Director of Innovation, UCD said: "Our focus through the UCD VentureLaunch Accelerator Programme is to support members of our research and entrepreneurial communities who want to accelerate the creation of exciting new start-ups for the global stage.
“The team at NovaUCD is looking forward to continuing to work with OcuHealth and all this year’s participants to support them to achieve their global ambitions.”
The other participants on this year’s VentureLaunch Accelerator programme in addition to OcuHealth were; Eurvista, (opens in a new window)Genshield-AI, (opens in a new window)GreenWatch, (opens in a new window)MicroJect, (opens in a new window)NAX Bioscience and (opens in a new window)SelekTx.
The 2025 UCD VentureLaunch Accelerator Programme judging panel, which selected the overall winner following pitches by the seven finalists, was chaired by Conor O’Sullivan, Atlantic Bridge. The other members of the panel were, Amy Neal, Delta Partners; Conor Mills, ACT; Niamh Sterling, HBAN and David Bowles, The Yield Lab.
By: David Kearns, Digital Journalist / Media Officer, UCD University Relations (with materials from Micéal Whelan, UCD Research and Innovation)
To contact the UCD News & Content Team, email: newsdesk@ucd.ie
