Making it Work: Trinzo helps medical firms get into regulatory good health

When Liam Turley founded Trinzo in 2016, he realised almost immediately that he was onto a winner.

Having worked for 25 years in the medical and pharmaceutical industries, Turley believed there was a clear gap in the market for bespoke, tailored solutions to help medical companies meet their regulatory requirements.

“You get a lot of companies that will come in and do death by PowerPoint,” Turley said of the medical consultancy business.

“That’s not us. We come in, we try to understand what the issues are, and then design the appropriate solution with the client. We feel we’re the only business in this space that doesn't use a cookie-cutter approach.”

Trinzo offers project management, compliance and remediation services to medical and pharmaceutical companies. It counts Johnson & Johnson, Cochlear and Cook Medical among a global network of clients, and is based in Galway city.

The firm is aiming for 20 per cent growth in the coming months and is currently in negotiations to complete its first takeover.

“We’re in talks to try to expand our services to the current client base, and that’s involving an acquisition,” he said, adding that the process could be completed within three months.

In 2019, Trinzo reported profits of €415,260. Despite the pandemic, last year was even more profitable for the firm as it pivoted to a remote consultancy model.

But Covid-19 did present challenges. Turley said it took the firm a few months to work out how to adapt to the radically changed environment. Previously, Trinzo’s consultants travelled around the world meeting clients, but now they were forced to deliver the same service from behind a computer screen.

Despite the early wobble, Turley said the process was ultimately “more or less seamless”, adding that Trinzo plans to offer a hybrid model in the aftermath of the pandemic, with a mixture of on-site and remote consultancy.

Aside from the pandemic, Trinzo is also looking ahead to the advent of European legislation which will tighten the rules around the sale of medical devices for human use.

Turley predicted that the new regulation, MDR 2017/745, will result in more demand for Trinzo’s services. “Many companies are poorly prepared, and it is mainly the small to mid-sized companies that will struggle with this,” he said of the legislation, which is to be implemented later this month.

Trinzo has been given high-potential start-up status by Enterprise Ireland (EI). While it has not received funding from the organisation, Turley said the support and guidance Trinzo has received from EI has benefited it greatly.

His ambition is to turn Trinzo into a “global leader” within the next few years. “We want to be the go-to, trusted partners for the top ten medical device companies in the world for their quality and regulatory challenges,” he said.