Myles Murray, the founder and CEO of PMD Solutions

PMD Solutions is one of 38 innovative SMEs across Europe selected under this round for funding. PMD will develop 'RespiraSense' a new respiratory monitoring device to tackle in-hospital respiratory compromise. The funding will be used to finance innovation activities like demonstration, testing, piloting, scaling up and miniaturisation, in addition to developing a mature business plan for their product.

Myles Murray PMD Solutions founder explains: "Respiratory rate is a key indicator of a patients general well-being so changes in this vital sign can be indications of respiratory compromise, increasing severity of sepsis, worsening pneumonia, and predict oncoming heart attacks - some of hospitals most frequently occurring adverse events. 'RespiraSense' is designed to continuously measure this vital sign, which if detected to be abnormal can help medical staff prevent these from happening with patients on the general ward. This can produce better patient outcomes and overall reduce length of stay for patients in hospitals and to free up beds - a current need for Emergency Departments nationwide."

RespiraSense is currently being used in hospitals in Ireland (Galway University Hospital and Cork University Hospital as of December 1st), Germany, and Hong Kong. By the end of 2015 PMD plans to be actively used in 5-10 hospitals around the world. PMD plans to extend the application of its technology to monitoring Chronic Patients at home and also to support home screening of patients at risk of sleep apnoea - a sleeping disorder that can advance into other conditions if left untreated.

PMD Solutions have announced it will increase its team by 11 people over the next 18 months. The company is looking to hire employees in their core areas of marketing and innovation to add their existing team of 10.