£700,000 UK government investment in Randox R&D
£700,000 UK government investment in Randox R&D
A £700,000 UK Research and Innovation investment into manufacturing processes at Randox means patients could benefit from quicker, cheaper and more consistent diagnosis of diseases.
The announcement comes exactly one year after the government launched its modern Industrial Strategy – the long-term plan to boost productivity by backing businesses to create high-quality, well-paid jobs in every corner of the United Kingdom.
The Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (ISCF) award, administered by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), will allow Randox Laboratories to further develop its state-of-the-art ‘freeze-drying’ technology which enables the components of vital diagnostic kits to be manufactured, stored and transported more effectively, producing better and speedier diagnoses.
For the first time it also allows this complicated manufacturing process to be carried out in the UK rather than having to be outsourced to countries such as the United States, bringing more jobs and economic growth. These new genomic analysis tools also have the potential to make a major impact in the global fight against antimicrobial resistance by identifying and quickly sharing information about resistant microbial strains.
More in-depth analysis of biomarkers in blood and other bodily fluid levels will allow better, quicker diagnosis of cancers and a range of other diseases, ranging from respiratory infections to sepsis, such as blood poisoning.
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland said:
“I am delighted to announce a £700,000k UK Government investment in Randox, a multinational life sciences company in County Antrim. This funding will bring significant benefits to Randox’s vital medical diagnostics and help create well-paid manufacturing jobs in Northern Ireland.
“A year-on from the launch of our Modern Industrial Strategy, this investment highlights the great progress we are making to boost productivity by backing leading businesses and creating high-quality jobs in every corner of the United Kingdom.”
John Penrose, Minister of State for Northern Ireland, who visited Randox today to mark the new investment, said:
“Everyone always says the UK needs more high-tec, high-value added manufacturing and the high-skilled, high-waged jobs it brings. But Randox are actually doing it right here in Northern Ireland. This is properly world leading, cutting-edge industry and I’m delighted that today’s money is helping bring the vision to life.”
Dr Peter FitzGerald, Managing Director of Randox Laboratories, commented:
“Innovative diagnostic technologies are not only capable of diagnosing disease and ill-health at the earliest possible stage, but they also have a real potential to advance personalised medicine. Our commitment to developing new and exciting breakthroughs in science, technology, engineering and manufacturing is therefore matched only, by our passion to transform the life of the patient. Randox is leading the way in moving from a one-size-fits-all approach towards decisions, practices, and products tailored to the needs of the individual and the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund award brings us one step closer to realising that aim.”
Funded through UK Research and Innovation, the award forms part of the ISCF Early Diagnosis and Precision Medicine programme, focusing on the use of diagnostic information and genetic analysis to drive more personalised healthcare. Innovate UK, now part of UK Research and Innovation, has supported Randox extensively since 2010, helping grow and scale an innovative diagnostics company who are now distributing their products all over the world.
The announcement comes after the government’s announcement of the Life Sciences Sector Deal that will support healthcare innovation and back businesses to create high-paid, high-quality jobs as part of the government’s modern Industrial Strategy. The deal signals a vote in confidence in UK industry, with global biopharmaceutical company UCB investing around £1 billion in research and development.
For further information please contact Randox PR by emailing randoxpr@randox.com
Randox collaboration with Centre for Personalised Medicine is officially launched
A €8.6m EU funded cross-border Centre for Personalised Medicine that will improve clinical decision making and patient safety for dementia, diabetes, cardiovascular, acute kidney injury and emergency surgery has been officially launched.
Funded by the European Union’s INTERREG VA Programme, managed by the Special EU Programmes Body (SEUPB), the Centre for Personalised Medicine brings together 14 academic, healthcare provider and enterprise partner organisations, including Randox Laboratories, to work together to deliver practical solutions to clinicians to ensure that patients get the right treatment at the right time.
Personalised medicine moves away from the ‘one size, fits all’ approach, using state of the art genomics testing, technology and computing and intelligence systems to deliver a more targeted approach.
Lead investigator of the Centre, Professor Tony Bjourson, Professor of Genomics at Ulster University and Director of the Northern Ireland Centre for Stratified Medicine said:
“The Centre for Personalised Medicine will bring personalised medicine approaches to five of the most prevalent disease areas to improve the care and treatment of patients in Northern Ireland, the border region of Ireland and Western Scotland. This collaboration extends partnership working to key clinicians in the health sector ensuring that we address real world issues across the five disease areas.”
Dr Kenneth Martin, Senior R&D Scientist at Randox Laboratories, explained Randox’s role in the Centre for Personalised Medicine;
“Our highly committed R&D programme here at Randox means that we have more than 490 new tests currently in development – more than any other diagnostics company – across a range of pressing health challenges, including dementia, cardio-metabolic syndrome and renal disease. These tests, developed on our patented Biochip Array Technology which can conduct multiple patient tests simultaneously, can work to identify patients who will benefit from tailored therapeutics for enhanced efficacy. The CPM project will use Randox Arrays in four of the five research clusters in the project to determine how the information they provide can benefit clinical decision making. We aim to provide clinicians with the tools they need to make more accurate and better-informed decisions for their patients. This means that countermeasures can be taken at the earliest possible opportunity, when treatment is most likely to succeed.”
Welcoming the project Gina McIntyre, CEO of the Special EU Programmes Body, said:
“This project reflects one of the core objectives of the INTERREG VA Programme, to improve access to healthcare services for thousands of citizens. It has great potential as it will bring together a diverse range of cross-border partners to significantly improve clinical decision-making, and personalised treatment approaches, in the fight against five of the most common diseases.”
Match-funding for this project has been provided by the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation in Ireland and the Department for the Economy in Northern Ireland.
For more information on the Centre for Personalised Medicine please contact the Randox PR team on 028 9442 2413 or by emailing randoxpr@randox.com
We Are Randox | Meet the team in Bangalore, India
Here at Randox, we’re a diverse bunch, spread over 145 countries in the world. We have more than 1400 employees of 44 nationalities, including 300 research scientists and engineers. Needless to say, the Randox family is a multicultural one!
We have four key manufacturing and R&D sites – in County Antrim, Northern Ireland; Dungloe, County Donegal, Ireland; Bangalore, India; and the Greater Washington DC area, in the U.S. This month, our We Are Randox article focuses on the team in Bangalore.
Randox India, located alongside other high-tech industries based in Bangalore, consists of 37 office staff and 77 field staff, including customer support engineers and sales managers. A base for administration, sales and manufacturing in India, the Bangalore site, set in the capital of the Indian state of Karnataka, services the 3.3 million square kilometre country.
Photographed are members of the Randox team in Bangalore from the following departments;
- Accounts and Finance
- Customer Support Engineers
- Logistics and Trading
- Manufacturing
- Quality Control
- Research & Development
- Administration
- Travel
- Human Resources
Brian Walsh, Manufacturing Manager at Randox India, said:
“The photograph below was taken during this year’s Diwali, which is the Hindu festival of lights celebrated every year in autumn in the northern hemisphere. Danny Maguire, who is based in Ardmore at Randox HQ, was over on business at the time and joined us in celebrating this cultural tradition.
“It is one of the most popular festivals of Hinduism, and spiritually signifies the victory of light over darkness, good over evil, knowledge over ignorance, and hope over despair.
“We all really enjoyed having Danny with us and sharing some of our customs and values with him, many of which our team members based in other sites across Randox would not know about.
“We hope to welcome many more of our colleagues from across the globe to Randox India in the near future!”
Want to know what it’s like to work in Bangalore? Read all about when we met up with Pankaj Chitkara, who is our National Sales Manager for the RX Series in India.
For further information on the Randox Bangalore team, please contact the Randox PR team via email: randoxpr@randox.com or phone 028 9442 2413
We Are Randox | Parkinson’s disease documentary leads to Film Festival Award for R&D Scientist Carol Naughton
Behind the doors of Randox, ground breaking scientific research is happening.
From Alzheimer’s disease to gastro-intestinal disorders, bladder cancer to cardiovascular disease, diabetes to kidney injury, our team of R&D scientists work on pioneering research projects in the areas of health that matter most, and ultimately, they save lives.
This week, we spoke to Carol Naughton, R&D Scientist in our Randox Teoranta team in Donegal, who has recently been part of an award-winning film documentary which aims to let people into the minds, the labs and the projects of scientists working on pioneering health research like that which takes place in Randox.
The film project, called ‘Feats of Modest Valour’, focuses on the lives of three individuals with Parkinson’s disease, Brian, Tom and Milena, and on a team of scientists working to find a cure for the condition. Aiming to bridge the gap between scientists and the very people the research will have the most impact on, Carol explains how working with Parkinson’s disease sufferers was the most humbling experience of her life.
Here’s Carol’s story.
The opportunity to be involved with Feats of Modest Valour (FOMV) was a gradual one. It was towards the end of my PhD when my supervisor, Dr. Eilis Dowd was awarded a grant as part of an EU consortium called Horizon 2020, with a new initiative to cure Parkinson’s disease. One of the remits of being in receipt of this grant was a community outreach programme called Science on Screen, and because of this, the Feats of Modest Valour documentary was born. It was commissioned by the Science Foundation Ireland Centre for Research in Medical Devices (CÚRAM) and the Galway UNESCO City of Film and Galway Film Centre.
Several projects were pitched to film makers to connect with the general public, and as a result of our pitch which revolved around the gene-environment interaction and increased susceptibility in Parkinson’s disease, ISHKA Films (Alice McDowell and Mia Mullarkey) production company decided to focus on our work. As part of the Horizon 2020 grant, the brain mattrain project is focussing on the development of a new biomedical device for Parkinson’s disease which will, for the first time, target the underlying cause of Parkinson’s disease rather than purely addressing the motor symptoms.
One of the most appealing aspects of the project was the platform for engaging with the general public. There is so much fascinating research being performed for a host of diseases all over Ireland but yet there sometimes seems to be a disconnect between that and the very people who the research will have the most impact on.
This was something we were very interested in when we hosted a conference in Galway in 2014. For the NECTAR (Network for European CNS Transplantation and Restoration) conference, which brings together a unique audience of clinicians and scientists from all over the world to disseminate their research and results of clinical trials. We wanted to do something different, to broaden the scope of the conference, so we integrated a patient-oriented focus into the programme. The founder of Cure Parkinson’s UK, Tom Isaacs (1968-2017), who was diagnosed with the disease when he was only 27, attended the event and spoke passionately about trying to bridge the gap between clinicians, scientists and patients. Being part of FOMV gave us the opportunity to do this, to merge science and real life.
It helped therefore that I had been spending quite a lot of time with Brian and with people from the Parkinson’s Association of Ireland. It has several branches all over the country so I spent quite a lot of time talking with them, organising charity walks, hosting information days and securing funding for speech and language therapists for them. Considering the wealth of knowledge that you can acquire throughout the course of a PhD, it is really rewarding being able to give something back.
When I look back, easily the best part about FOMV was spending time with people with Parkinson’s disease. It is quite easy to forget the bigger picture, the reason why you set out to do research in the first place. This was an opportunity for me to interact with people who were suffering with Parkinson’s disease and talk with them and explain to them about our research. The platform for relaying scientific research to the general public is definitely an under-utilised one. For the majority of research, people do not know what is going on. When the tailor for the documentary was first shown to people, the most common response you heard back was: “I can’t believe this is happening on our backdoor,” or “That was so easy to follow and to understand,” or “Why don’t more scientists do this to explain their research to us?”
Our documentary was recently submitted to a film festival in New York called the Imagine Science Films (ISF) festival, in collaboration with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The select jury included Nobel prize-winning scientist Professor Martin Chalfe, and award-winning science columnist for the New York Times, Professor Carl Zimmer.
We were absolutely delighted when FOMV won The Scientist Award, which is awarded to a film that portrays, accurately and importantly inventively, the life of a scientist. The goal of this award is to encourage more scientists to create films that let people into their minds, into their labs and into their lifestyle. In addition to the top science award, FOMV was also awarded runner up People’s Choice Award. This award is presented to the documentary that receives the most audience votes during the festival.
Being part of Feats of Modest Valour was definitely one of the most humbling experiences I have ever had. I have met so many people who suffer with Parkinson’s disease and in the face of such a relentless disease, they have such incredible resolve to make the most of their lives. We tend to take so much for granted and forget to appreciate the little things. And while that sounds very clichéd, Milena, Brian and Tom are no longer in a position to do that. They live a completely clockwork existence based around the particular time when they take their medication. And even then, their days are more bad than good.
That’s why the title of the documentary ‘Feats of Modest Valour’ is based on a poem called ‘No signs of struggle,’ by an American poet named Robin Morgan, who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease;
“You can spot it in the provocation of a button, an arm poking at a sleeve, a balancing act at a night-time curb while negotiating the dark. Feats of such modest valour, who would suspect them to be exercises in an intimate, fierce discipline, a metaphysics of being relentlessly aware.”
Make sure to tune in to RTE One on Sunday 12th of November, when ‘Feats of Modest Valour’ is on at 10.35pm.
For more We Are Randox stories about our amazing colleagues, make sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and follow the hashtag #WeAreRandox.
For current vacancies in our team, visit careers.randox.com
Randox Evidence Investigator used in major HIV/AIDS study
The Department of Clinical Biochemistry in the Royal Free Hospital in London has recently completed a major HIV/AIDS study into the cause of lipodystrophy, with the help of the Randox Evidence Investigator.
Lipodystrophy is a disorder in which the body’s distribution of fat undergoes serious changes. People with lipodystrophy can suffer from the build-up, the loss, or the redistribution of body fat and HIV/AIDS patients often suffer from the disorder.
The exact reason for its cause and progression is not completely understood, but it is thought that it can sometimes be triggered by an infection within the body.
The Department of Clinical Biochemistry in the Royal Free Hospital, alongside the Department of Pharmacology, The Institute of Biomedical Statistics and Infectious and Tropical Diseases, all at the University of Belgrade in Serbia, therefore launched a study to determine the relationship between levels of interleukins in HIV/AIDS patients and the presence or lack of lipodystrophy. Interleukins are produced by white blood cells to stimulate the immune response.
The Randox Evidence Investigator, a semi-automated benchtop analyser, which is capable of processing up to 2376 tests per hour, was used to measure interleukins IL-1α, IL-1β, IL-2, IL-4, IL-6, IL-8, and IL-10, in 66 HIV/AIDS patients. The results demonstrated that lower levels of IL-4 and IL-10 influenced lipodystrophy in those people.
Significantly lower levels of IL-4 and IL-10 were observed in patients suffering from lipodystrophy compared to those who did not suffer from lipodystrophy. The interleukin levels were measured using the Cytokine Array I that utilises Randox’s Biochip Array Technology and enabled all of the tests to be performed simultaneously on the patient sample.
These results show for the first time a significant correlation between IL-4 levels and lipodystrophy in HIV/AIDS patients, making the study a significant breakthrough in understanding the development of the condition and potential therapy.
You can find more information about the study on PubMed: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28189545
For more information on our Evidence Series range of Biochip immunoanalysers please visit www.randox.com/multiplex-testing or email EvidenceSeries@randox.com
Careers Tips | 5 Reasons You’ll Love Working at Randox
Are you thinking of working at Randox? Great! Whether you’re from a science background, business, or art, Randox embrace multiple disciplines and we, at Randox Careers, are here to give you 5 reasons why you’ll love working with us!
1. Company Culture
Randox have built a team of the most passionate, inspiring and motivated individuals in the industry. Employees of Randox aren’t just a team, but they’re family!
Randox Laboratories likes to celebrate talent, and encourages people to work to their strengths, as recently demonstrated in the largely successful Future in the Making event, which was held to gather and thank Randox employees worldwide for the success of the growth of the company. Randox encouraged employees to share their experiences through the hashtag #WeAreRandox. Check it out, here!
2. Learning Opportunities are Endless!
Due to the size of Randox, and the vast specialties in the health sector, Randox Laboratories has a lot to offer in teaching new, innovative techniques in business, science, design, technology, engineering, and many more!
Randox is a great place to be given the opportunity to get creative in your industry! Work is always fast-paced, forward-thinking and open to fresh, innovative ideas! Peter FitzGerald (Randox Founder & MD) stated “We never stand still here! Our mission is to transform healthcare by continuously improving diagnostic solutions, which, for us, ultimately means saving lives.”
Randox Laboratories is not only a great place to grow, develop and climb the career-ladder whilst in full-time work, but it encourages growth in students, too! Renowned for their highly active Placement programs for 1st and 2nd year students, Randox offers 50+ positions each year for every sector. We hold a special awards ceremony for our highest achieving students at the end of the year, commending them for their outstanding work at Randox! You can read about the Pinnacle Placement Awards and see this year’s winners here.
3. Randox is a Globally Respected Brand
Working for a company like Randox will prove your ambition to individuals in every industry globally. We understand your CV is very important to you, and having worked for a well-respected brand like Randox, you’re sure to stand out from the crowd!
4. Be a Jet-setter!
Randox has a large global presence. With offices in over 145 countries, we are frequently attending high profile events in such places as Dubai, Thailand, London, USA, and Paris! (You can check out some of our upcoming events, here.)
You can have the opportunity to experience these beautiful countries with Randox!
5. Let Your Work Change The World
Randox is an influential company and a global leader in the Healthcare and Diagnostics industry, responsible for diagnosing 5% of the population’s conditions. We are dedicated to improving the healthcare industry, and saving lives with our hard work. Randox’s success means better quality of life for the global population, as we discover how to diagnose as early as possible.
Do you want to change the world with us? Join the team, check out our opportunities!
