Randox, the laboratory diagnostics company, has announced the opening of 10 new adaptive “cube” laboratories within Great Britain. These facilities provide a rapid and cost-effective model to expand laboratory provision.
They will improve accessibility to COVID testing, facilitate wider screening services and adapt to future health and testing challenges. Based on a modular format, sites can be operational within weeks and be redeployed if required.
The laboratories will initially be used to enhance the UK’s COVID-19 testing capacity during the winter, with each lab’s daily capacity of 12,000 tests combining to bring online an additional 120,000 COVID samples per day. They can subsequently be re-purposed to meet the UK’s post COVID diagnostic requirements.
The opening of the new laboratories, which upon completion, will create 700 new jobs across the UK, follows £30 million of investment by Randox, bringing its total COVID-19 investment to £150 million. Two of Randox’s ten new labs are already operational outside Manchester, with two sites to the north of London opening before the end of the month. Following this, a further six labs are set to open by the end of 2021.
Dr Peter FitzGerald, Randox managing director, said: “Whilst the initial emphasis of these new laboratories will be on providing accessible, reliable and cost-effective COVID PCR tests, we of course acknowledge the positive steps being taken to ease restrictions and continue opening up our economy.
“We can draw on what we have learnt both pre and during COVID, leveraging the extensive logistics framework and IT infrastructure we have put in place, to directly address the global shortfall in laboratory testing capacity that has been exposed by the pandemic.
“The time taken to establish the required diagnostic infrastructure in the early stages of the pandemic adversely impacted the international response, but with such an adaptable capability, the UK can, as and when needed, respond rapidly to ever-increasing diagnostic demand.
“The legacy of COVID is that people increasingly understand and appreciate the importance of diagnostics and testing across our society, and as such we anticipate a real appetite from people to take greater interest in their health.
“We will continue COVID testing where necessary but will harness this high-volume testing capacity to pivot back to our core business offering of clinical health tests. The investment we have made in COVID lab facilities will allow us to build a national testing network that will facilitate a shift towards a new era of preventative healthcare, in which ill-health and disease are detected at the earliest possible opportunity, potentially even before symptoms appear.
“Our new adaptive laboratories will fundamentally be a game-changer for the UK’s future diagnostics requirements – improving patient outcomes and reducing the burden on healthcare services.”
