Suzanne Moloney is the founder and CEO of HidraMed Solutions, a medical technology company that develops wound-care products for people living with hidradenitis suppurativa (HS). HS is a chronic, recurrent skin disease that causes painful, draining wounds in delicate areas such as the armpits, groin and under the breasts. It is more common in women and often takes years to diagnose, which means symptoms are frequently advanced before patients receive consistent NHS care.

Moloney’s route into MedTech was not conventional. Before HidraMed, she ran a bakery. Her story is a case study in how lived experience, resilience and a clear problem can become the foundation of a health technology business. For women in MedTech UK, where leadership remains heavily male-dominated, it is also a reminder that founders who understand a condition from the inside can build products that traditional healthcare may overlook.

The scale of hidradenitis suppurativa in the UK

HS is frequently misdiagnosed as boils, acne or an infection, and the delay in diagnosis can stretch to years. The physical impact is severe enough, but the mental-health burden is also significant: chronic pain, disrupted sleep, anxiety, depression and social isolation are common among people with moderate to severe disease.

Despite the number of people affected, HS receives limited attention compared with other chronic conditions. Patient-led companies such as HidraMed have emerged partly because the day-to-day reality of living with HS has been under-represented in product design and clinical research.

Why patient-led innovation matters for women in MedTech UK

Women remain under-represented in MedTech leadership in the UK and Ireland. The UK HealthTech sector is the largest in Europe, with a turnover of around £27 billion, according to the Association of British HealthTech Industries (ABHI), 2024. The broader pattern is clear: women-led businesses make up a growing share of the UK economy but still receive a tiny fraction of investment capital. According to the 2024 Alison Rose Review of Female Entrepreneurship, there are more than 1.6 million women-led businesses in the UK, and closing the gender entrepreneurship gap could add up to £250 billion to the economy. Yet British Business Bank figures from 2024 show women-led businesses receive only around 2% of UK equity investment.

ONS data from 2024 also shows that self-employment among women over 50 continues to rise, with many starting businesses after a career change or health-related career break. That trend matters for MedTech, where lived experience and clinical insight often come from mid-career professionals and patients rather than fresh graduates.

This investment and leadership gap matters in health technology because the people who design, fund and approve products often have no personal experience of the conditions those products are meant to treat. Moloney’s patient perspective gave HidraMed a product-market fit that would have been difficult to achieve through conventional market research alone.

From bakery to BioExel

Moloney trained as a chef and opened a bakery in 2012, making cakes, sweets and desserts for corporate and private events. She grew the business to a team of four. At the same time, she had been living with HS since her teens and struggling to find dressings that stayed in place, controlled leakage and did not add to the pain.

In 2013 she began turning her own experience into a product idea. Progress was slow: several years of design, testing and refinement passed before she had a prototype she could present to investors. A turning point came in 2018, when she was accepted onto the BioExel medical-device accelerator programme at the University of Galway. The programme gave her a structured route through device development, regulatory requirements and commercialisation.

For UK women considering a similar leap, programmes such as Start Up Loans Female Founders and British Business Bank-backed funds offer finance and support. Innovate UK also runs funding competitions and accelerator programmes for health and life-sciences startups.

How HidraWear was developed and launched

After years of development and regulatory work, Moloney launched HidraWear in 2019. The product was created first to solve her own problems as a patient, but conversations with other people with HS showed her the need was far greater than she had realised.

Feedback from early users helped refine the design, with patients reporting that the dressings finally felt secure and comfortable. For Moloney, the most important measure of success has been hearing from patients who say they can now manage daily life with more confidence.

Funding and scaling a women-led health business

In 2019, Moloney and her colleague Conan Finlay closed a seed round. Fundraising is demanding, but it also gave them the chance to present the product to MedTech specialists and raise awareness of HS at the same time. The round brought together private and institutional investors who continued to provide guidance as the company scaled.

HidraWear began as a direct-to-patient product sold through the company’s own website. Since then, the focus has shifted to making it available through health systems and insurers in the UK, Europe and the USA. In the UK, that has meant building relationships with clinicians, specialist nurses and procurement teams so patients can access the dressings through the NHS or private insurers.

Expanding into new markets means navigating different regulatory pathways, reimbursement models and clinical guidelines. In the UK, MedTech companies must engage with the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), NICE and NHS procurement frameworks. It is slow, relationship-driven work, but it is the most sustainable way to reach the people who need the product.

What Suzanne Moloney learned

Moloney is inspired by Anita Roddick and her book Business as Unusual. Roddick’s work in ethical enterprise and philanthropy is a reminder that profit and purpose can sit side by side.

Her advice to anyone starting out is to hold onto the original vision. Direction matters more than perfection. She also stresses the value of surrounding yourself with people who challenge and support you, whether that is a formal mentor, an advisory board or a peer network.

From baker to MedTech founder, the journey has taught her that unconventional paths can be an advantage. The skills she already had, creativity, stamina and customer focus, turned out to be the ones that mattered most.

Action steps for women founders in health and MedTech

• Start with the problem you understand deeply. Lived experience is a genuine competitive advantage in health innovation.
• Map the UK funding landscape early. Use the British Business Bank, Innovate UK and sector-specific angel networks.
• Build your regulatory knowledge before you need it. MHRA, NICE and NHS procurement processes take time.
• Find mentors and peers who understand both the sector and the founder journey.
• Keep patient or customer outcomes at the centre of every commercial decision.

Suzanne Moloney’s journey from bakery to MedTech founder shows that the most powerful business ideas often come from lived experience. For women in MedTech UK, her story is proof that unconventional backgrounds, patient insight and persistence can build companies that change how healthcare works. For more context on the wider landscape, see our Women in Business: Key UK Facts page.