Irish Medical Device Maker Opens Locally

Realtime Technologies, a Dublin, Ireland-based medical device company, will establish a North American headquarters in Cambridge for a division of the comapny called Shimmer Research. Shimmer was launched a year ago with technology Realtime licensed from Intel. Shimmer Research makes wearable health sensors that can tranmsmit vital signs information to a patient’s doctor or other caregiver. The market for the products is seniors living at home.

Shimmer Research has 15 employees in Dublin and has hired two so far to work at the company’s newly leased space on Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge. The company plans to hire another five employees in the coming months. Parent Realtime Technologies is a privately held company with 80 employees in Ireland and 40 in the Czech Republic.

The Massachusetts Office of International Trade and Investment first began working to bring Realtime Technologies to the Bay State in 2007.

In its first 12 months the Shimmer Research division has experienced rapid growth and has customers in over 20 countries to date. Shimmer Research Vice President Kieran Daly says, “We have 30 to 40 percent of our business in the United States, and the majority of that is in the northeast corridor. So it just makes sense for us to be here, in the Boston med-tech cluster.”