Dunbar Pharma's Leah Fletcher Named HPSU Founder of the Year

Leah Fletcher, founder and CEO of Dunbar Pharma, has been named Enterprise Ireland's High Potential Start-Up (HPSU) Founder of the Year 2026. Her Athlone company is Ireland's first EU GMP-certified cannabinoid pharmaceutical manufacturer, and the award caps a journey that took Fletcher from a primary school classroom to a licensed pharmaceutical cleanroom.

The award was announced by Enterprise Ireland on 16 October 2026, after five finalists pitched to a judging panel at Salesforce Tower in Dublin. Dunbar Pharma makes WaterClear THC™, a plant-derived dronabinol active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) that is now supplied to regulated medicine makers in Germany and the United Kingdom.

The award and how the winner was chosen

The HPSU Founder of the Year Awards recognise entrepreneurs building Enterprise Ireland's High Potential Start-Ups, the agency's portfolio of early-stage companies with the potential to scale internationally. The 2026 shortlist was drawn from the HPSU Founders Forum, a peer programme that Enterprise Ireland delivers with Select Strategies. It is now in its 11th year, and around 500 HPSU companies have taken part, from AI and SaaS to food, biotech and medical devices.

Each of the five finalists was selected by their peers to represent their Founder Group. On the night, moderated by Gary Fox of The Entrepreneur Experiment, the finalists pitched to a panel chaired by Donnchadh Cullinan, Divisional Manager at Enterprise Ireland, with Founders Forum alumni Dan Fox, founder of Johnson Hana and strategic advisor at Eudia, and Heidi Davis of Peri. The 2025 award went to Mark O'Sullivan of NeuroBell, which makes portable brain monitors for neonatal intensive care, Silicon Republic reported.

Announcing the winner, Mark Christal, Executive Director of Enterprise Ireland, said: "Tonight's five finalists were chosen by their peers to represent their Founder Groups, which says a great deal about the respect they have earned within this community. Congratulations to Leah and the team at Dunbar Pharma, and to all of this year's finalists. Here's to the next decade of ambition, scale and success."

From classroom to cleanroom: Leah Fletcher's path

Fletcher did not come to pharmaceuticals through a laboratory. She began her career as a teacher in an Irish national school and then taught at a school in British Columbia, Canada. In a June 2026 interview with Silicon Republic she described the move into pharma as a "huge leap from classroom to cleanroom".

Her interest in cannabinoid medicines started in Canada. "My interest in cannabinoid medicines began while I was living in Canada around the time cannabis was legalised there," she told Silicon Republic. Back in Ireland she followed the campaigners, many of them mothers, who were seeking cannabinoid treatments for their children, and, as a new mother herself, became more concerned about the gap between patient need, public debate and regulated access. Her answer was to work through the medicines system rather than around it: "I saw pharmaceutical systems not as a barrier, but as a solution."

She has been open about the learning curve. Coming from outside the industry meant learning a new language of systems and standards, and her advice to others in that position is to accept that you may be the "least experienced person in the room". As she told the Westmeath Independent in October 2025: "Even though I didn't study science in college, I do see myself as a scientist of sorts."

Enterprise Ireland's finalist biography describes what that learning produced: Fletcher built Dunbar "from concept to manufacture, securing major funding, a first-of-its-kind suite of technically demanding licences, developing in-house processes and IP". It also calls her "a recognised authority on cannabinoid regulation".

Building Dunbar Pharma in Monksland

Dunbar Pharma was founded in 2022, according to the Westmeath Independent, and officially launched in October 2025. Fletcher co-founded the company with her husband, James DeMello, and Silicon Republic reported that her father is the site's facilities manager. The company operates from Monksland, on the Roscommon side of Athlone, where it researches, develops and manufactures plant-derived cannabinoid APIs.

By October 2025 the company employed 30 people in scientific and technical roles. Enterprise Ireland says Fletcher leads a team "pairing senior pharmaceutical professionals with an ambitious scientific graduate programme".

The company became an Enterprise Ireland HPSU client in 2025. Enterprise Ireland invested alongside private Irish investors, and that backing supported the build-out of the Athlone GMP operation and entry into the German and UK markets, according to Business of Cannabis. The company's EU GMP certification is listed on the EudraGMDP public register, according to its UK partner IPS Pharma, and the site operates under the oversight of the Health Products Regulatory Authority (HPRA).

Fletcher has stressed that the product took years to reach the market. "It is of course deeply satisfying to see a product out in the world that you spent five years developing," she said in 2025, adding: "In business, there isn't a finish line, it's more like reaching a base camp before the next climb."

WaterClear THC: what Dunbar makes

Dronabinol is the international non-proprietary name for purified delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). It has been prescribed for decades within regulated medical systems; the US Food and Drug Administration first approved it in 1985 for nausea and vomiting caused by chemotherapy. Most dronabinol on the market is made synthetically. Dunbar's WaterClear THC™ is purified from plant starting material instead, to over 98% purity, meeting pharmacopoeia standards, as we reported when it launched in the UK in August 2026.

Dunbar does not sell finished medicines to patients. It supplies the API to licensed partners who make the final products. In Germany, Europe's largest market for medical cannabinoids, the API reaches pharmacies through wholesalers for magistral preparations, medicines that a pharmacy makes up for an individual patient's prescription. In the UK, IPS Pharma uses it to make "Specials", unlicensed medicines for patients whose needs no licensed product meets: oral capsules in 5 mg and 10 mg strengths, and oral solutions and sprays at 25 mg/mL. In October 2026 IPS Pharma began making what was described as the UK's first plant-derived dronabinol oral spray at its MHRA-licensed facility in Surrey.

"The UK's first plant-derived dronabinol oral spray is an important milestone for Dunbar," Fletcher said at the time. "With oral sprays alongside capsules, IPS Pharma is using our dronabinol API in a number of finished formats." Enterprise Ireland's figure of ten magistral preparations in two major export markets reflects this partner model.

A run of recognition

The Founder of the Year award is the third major Irish award for Fletcher and Dunbar in just over a year.

Fletcher has consistently credited the team. "This recognition really belongs to our amazing team in Monksland," she told the Roscommon Herald after the 2025 Startup Awards, and after the BioPharmaChem award in May she called it "a proud day for our little Irish company from Athlone".

Fletcher on Ireland's cannabinoid medicine landscape

Dunbar exports its API, but the founder has views on access at home. Ireland's Medical Cannabis Access Programme, set up by regulations in 2019 and opened to consultants in July 2021, allows prescribing of approved cannabis-based products for three conditions where standard treatments have failed: spasticity in multiple sclerosis, intractable nausea and vomiting from chemotherapy, and severe treatment-resistant epilepsy. Doctors can also apply for individual ministerial licences.

Fletcher has described the Irish landscape as "cautious and tightly controlled", with access that exists but is limited. She has called for more clinical confidence, education and structured access pathways, and for scale-up funding that fits regulated sectors, because life-science companies "do not scale like software companies". She also argues that Ireland's strengths in pharmaceutical manufacturing, quality and compliance could support a cannabinoid medicines hub, and urges innovators in the field not to overpromise. Her summary of the opportunity: "Ireland has the talent, discipline and scientific credibility to build serious companies in complex technical sectors."

That approach matches the principles she sets out for her own company: a pharmaceutical framework built on "evidence, quality, consistency, compliance and patient safety".

The other 2026 finalists

• Breda O'Regan, Lia EyeCare: eyecare technology company whose first product, Nightleaf®, is a non-invasive wearable used before sleep.
• Mark Birrane, WONDR: lower-sugar, high-protein, high-fibre sweets brand growing across Ireland, the UK and Europe.
• Robert Norton, Kaptea: maker of Pronto, a journey orchestration platform built on Twilio.
• Seán Kirwan, MedWrite AI: AI agents that automate clinical documentation, coding and administrative work for Irish hospitals; the company has raised over €1 million.

Three of the five finalists work in health: Dunbar Pharma, MedWrite AI and Lia EyeCare, which has taken its first device through CE certification.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Conclusion and Outlook

Dunbar Pharma has moved in four years from founding to licensed commercial manufacture and exports to two of Europe's main cannabinoid medicine markets, and its founder has now been recognised by her peers across Enterprise Ireland's start-up portfolio. The company says it plans to widen its product range and expand manufacturing capacity in Athlone during 2027, while partners work on further formulations for Germany and the UK. For Ireland's life-science sector, it is also a reminder that a founder from outside the industry can build a GMP manufacturer in the Midlands, given the patience to learn the regulatory system rather than work around it.

Sources: Enterprise Ireland press release, "Leah Fletcher, Dunbar Pharma announced as Founder of the Year 2026 at Enterprise Ireland's High Potential Start-Up Awards" (16 October 2026); Silicon Republic, Suhasini Srinivasaragavan (16 October 2026) and Laura Varley (10 June 2026); Westmeath Independent, Rebekah O'Reilly (16 October 2025), 7 May 2026 and 2 October 2026; Roscommon Herald (29 November 2025); Business of Cannabis, Ben Stevens (2 October 2026); IPS Pharma; gov.ie Medical Cannabis Access Programme; Priya Life Science (August 2026). All checked 16 October 2026.

Cover photo: Leah Fletcher with the HPSU Founder of the Year 2026 award. Photo: Enterprise Ireland. Team and laboratory photos: Dunbar Pharma.