Linde awards first research grants at Linde Healthcare REALfund event

Munich – The technology group The Linde Group today announced the first beneficiaries of the REALfund initiative. The REALfund was set up in the company’s global business unit Linde Healthcare in 2010 to support novel and innovative research into the role of gases in three key areas: respiratory medicine, acute pain management and gas-enabled wound care. Four grantees – selected from over 30 applications – will receive a total EUR 300,000 in funding.

“Every day, gases prove invaluable in the treatment of illnesses,” said J. Kent Masters, Member of the Executive Board of Linde AG and responsible for the company’s healthcare business. “Therefore research and development is also a key priority in this area. The REALfund is intended to promote projects relating to the use of gases in certain therapeutic focus areas of healthcare. The current REALfund grants cover a wide range of intriguing innovative research.”

The funding will support the grantees to continue their research which aims to develop treatments that benefit patients and caregivers. Dr Alice Margaret Wood, Birmingham University, is researching how oxygen therapy can help patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Professor Gerd Döring, University of Tübingen, is researching the use of nitric oxide in the treatment of infections for cystic fibrosis. Professor Arne May, University of Hamburg, is investigating the effect of oxygen on headaches, including migraines. And Dr Paul Seddon, Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust, is looking at how new technology can be used to monitor patients‘ oxygen saturation and heart rate from home rather than in hospital.

The REALfund scientific event in Munich has been attended by the REALfund grantees, along with top management of Linde AG, and a number of invited experts and key opinion leaders in respiratory care.

The Linde Healthcare REALfund (REAL = Research, Evolve, Advance, Lead) is a research fund that develops and fosters promising ideas in healthcare and is aimed at healthcare practitioners, patient organisations, inventors and scientists. The fund supports innovative projects that investigate new applications for gases, devices for safe and effective delivery of gases, equipment to monitor the effects and success of gas-enabled therapies, and complementary products and services in this field. Grants are awarded in line with the complexity of each project and may be as much as EUR 75,000.

The Healthcare business covers Linde’s medical gases, services, devices and care operations. Here, the Group continues on its steady growth path and achieved sales of EUR 1.130 bn in the 2010 financial year.



The Linde Group is a world-leading gases and engineering company with around 48,700 employees working in more than 100 countries worldwide. In the 2010 financial year, it achieved sales of EUR 12.868 bn. The strategy of The Linde Group is geared towards sustainable earnings-based growth and focuses on the expansion of its international business with forward-looking products and services. Linde acts responsibly towards its shareholders, business partners, employees, society and the environment – in every one of its business areas, regions and locations across the globe. Linde is committed to technologies and products that unite the goals of customer value and sustainable development.

For more information, see The Linde Group online at http://www.linde.com