An international medical diagnostics firm based in Northern Ireland has processed its tenth million Covid-19 test.
Randox Health Services said the sample makes it the first Pillar 2 testing laboratory to achieve this milestone.
A spokesperson for the company said that £85m has been in invested at its facilities and equipment in Northern Ireland. Over 850 new staff have been recruited since then and more than 80,000 sq ft of new molecular laboratory space has been built and equipped.
Randox has been a key partner laboratory from initiation of the UK’s National Testing Programme in March 2020.
In August, Randox suffered a blow when it was ordered by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency to recall its Covid-19 Home Testing Kit.
However, since then its valid Covid-19 testing capacity has grown to over 120,000 samples per day today, making Randox the largest throughput laboratory in the UK and Ireland and among the biggest in Europe.
Randox also offers a range of testing and broader health and wellbeing services to individuals and corporates and has other operations in the fields of forensic toxicology and life sciences.
Randox founder and managing director Dr Peter FitzGerald said the Covid-19 testing milestone is “an incredible achievement”.
He said: “It is testament to the dedication and hard work of our teams, who have pulled together at a time of national crisis and whose non-stop efforts are vital to enable the country to return to both social and economic normality.
“We will continue to build our capacity and develop new cutting-edge testing equipment to support the fight against Covid-19. We’ve all learnt from this pandemic the importance of early and accurate testing and Randox is committed to investing in diagnostic technology to meet future health challenges.”
