Some 800 new jobs are to be created in Northern Ireland over the next three years by Randox Laboratories, which will be developing a new biochip that will be used in the future to diagnose medical conditions such as cancer and heart disease.
The company, which already employs 400 people in the North, is to invest £123m sterling in new biochip technologies that will help doctors diagnose life-threatening conditions such as cancer and heart disease much faster and more accurately.
The investment will receive support to the tune of £18m sterling from Invest NI. Randox Laboratories manufactures diagnostic testing equipment that is used by 30,000 hospital laboratories in 130 countries.
The latest investment is focused on the development of an automated analyser machine and biochips that enable clinic operatives to diagnose many diseases based on a single sample from a patient.
So far more than 180 scientists at Randox’s four plants in the Crumlin area of Antrim have been involved in the development of the new technology, code-named Evidence.
The company has been described by Northern Ireland’s minister for enterprise, trade and investment as a “first class example of a Northern Ireland entrepreneurial business”.
By John Kennedy
