Fintan Smith, founder of Carysfort Healthcare

What is the defining feature about your business?

Our focus is licensing and marketing unique and innovative medicines in Ireland. We are the first healthcare company here (or in the UK) to launch paracetamol in granular form. Tipol paracetamol granules are flavoured, can be taken without water and are suitable for adults and children. So no more spoons, tablets, bottles, water or hassle.

What’s the biggest mistake you’ve made in business?

With medicines the priority always has to be safety and efficacy, so there is no room for any mistakes.

For us it’s more a question of “Could I have done that better?” when evaluating previous decisions.

What has been your major success to date?

Getting products ready for market and into the distribution network is a major task, especially for a small company. So it would have to be our success in signing an exclusive commercialisation agreement with a leading global generics company to distribute our products here.

Who do you admire most in business and why?

I admire all business owners who are steering their business through very turbulent times and doing so successfully.

Specifically I admire Michael Smurfit, Dermot Desmond and JP McManus. These men are “leaders” in their industries. During such difficult trading times Ireland needs such leaders and they should form part of an economic group continually advising Government how best to trade out of our unemployment difficulties and move to robust job creation policies.

What piece of advice would you give to the Government to stimulate the economy?

Show some imagination in terms of encouraging business owners to create jobs. For example, we are creating jobs but we are unable to get any grant or other assistance from Government because we have outsourced our manufacturing to specialist producers.

One of the other criteria for assistance is that we must be engaged in export, but we are still in our start-up phase. It’s a great pity the Government appears not to really understand business and what practical assistance is needed by employers to create jobs.

Clearly, the Government’s view is that if you are not manufacturing or exporting, then you do not create jobs.

Do you think the banks are open for business to SMEs at the moment?

In my experience, yes, but your business must be focused within an industry that is performing well and with a good track record.

What would you say has been your biggest challenge?

In a start-up phase within the pharmaceutical sector, there are very substantial costs which are front-loaded. These include regulatory costs, licence fee costs, legal costs, packaging etc. From concept to market takes an average of three years but can be longer. Funding all of this has been our greatest challenge.

How are the short-term goals of your business?

To continue our strategy to launch high-quality, niche licenced medicines in Ireland while also working at export opportunities. In addition to launching Tipol we are also the first company to launch a throat lozenge (Tantum Verde) containing benzydamine hydrochloride 3mg which has anti-inflammatory, analgesic and local anaesthetic properties for mouth and throat pain and irritation. So successful marketing of this product is also a short-term goal.

What’s your business worth and would you sell it?

As Carysfort Healthcare is very much in the start-up phase, it is very difficult to value our business at this stage. We have plans to launch a further 12 to 14 medicines in the coming 24 months, so we hope the value will increase. I enjoy my work a lot and there are many other product opportunities out there for us to explore, so no plans to sell.