Randox

Last updated

Randox Laboratories Ltd.
Company typePrivate limited company
Founded1982
Founder Peter FitzGerald
Headquarters Crumlin, County Antrim, Northern Ireland, UK
Number of locations
145 countries
Key people
Peter FitzGerald (owner)
RevenueIncrease2.svg£619,000,000 (2021) [1]
Increase2.svg£275,000,000 (2021) [1]
Total assets Decrease2.svg£47,700,000 (2018)
Website www.randox.com

Randox is a Northern Irish health and toxicology company in the in vitro diagnostics industry headquartered in Crumlin, County Antrim, Northern Ireland, owned by Peter FitzGerald. The company develops diagnostic solutions for hospitals, clinical, research and molecular labs, food testing, forensic toxicology, veterinary labs and life sciences. It develops, manufactures and markets reagents and equipment for laboratory medicine, with a distribution network of 145 countries. Randox is the biggest polymerase chain reaction testing provider in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland. [2] [3] [4] Randox received three contracts by the Department of Health and Social Care without having to compete for a tender.

Contents

In 2020, Randox was awarded nearly £500 million by the government of the United Kingdom to provide private-sector COVID-19 testing at the cost of about £49 per kit. [5]

History

Randox was established in 1982 by its owner, Peter FitzGerald, in Crumlin, Northern Ireland. [6] [7] Beginning with a team of six employees,[ citation needed ] by 2020 the company had 2,700 employees. [8] In 2014 it invested €25 million in developing a site in Dungloe, County Donegal, aiming to create more than 470 jobs in research, engineering and life sciences by 2020. [9] It moved into the Randox Science Park, a 45-acre R&D and manufacturing site housed on the former Massereene Barracks in 2019.[ citation needed ] Randox Health has sponsored the Grand National at Aintree racecourse since 2017. [10] The company was restructured in March 2020 to be ultimately held by Randox (IOM) Ltd based in the Isle of Man. The company stated this was "to support any future transfer of company ownership to future generations" [11] but The Times noted that the move could help the company avoid paying millions in tax. [12] In April 2022, the company purchased Boston House in Fitzroy Square, London for £29m from the entrepreneur Touker Suleyman and was expected to spend a further £15m to convert the property into The Randox Institute which will be an education centre for personalised healthcare. [1]

Data tampering and toxicology fraud

In 2014 Randox acquired a laboratory in Manchester from Trimega Laboratories which had gone into administration. [13] In February 2017, two Randox employees were arrested on suspicion of perverting the course of justice amid allegations of data tampering within Randox Testing Services, used by many Police Forces in England and Wales for forensic toxicology. [14] As of November 2017, around 50 criminal prosecutions for driving offences had been dropped in what BBC home affairs correspondent, Danny Shaw, described as "the biggest forensic science scandal in the UK for decades". [15] Police forces have begun reviewing over 10,000 criminal cases that may be affected by the alleged data manipulation, including sexual and violent crimes. [16] In 2021, after 5 years of investigation, the Greater Manchester Police (GMP) announced that up to 27,000 cases could be impacted. [17]

Randox will pay £2.5 million to fund the National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) retesting program. [18]

Lobbying government

In March 2019 it was reported that former cabinet minister and Conservative MP Owen Paterson, who was a consultant to Randox, had helped to lobby the government to seek contracts for them. This violated rules stating that an MP may not lobby on behalf of a paying client. [19] Paterson communicated with the Food Standards Agency three times in relation to testing for antibiotics in milk and the Department for International Development four times in relation to blood testing. [20]

Coronavirus testing

A Randox PCR home test kit in the UK, showing the swab, and multi-layer packaging to deliver it to the lab Randox COVID-19 PCR home test kit.jpg
A Randox PCR home test kit in the UK, showing the swab, and multi-layer packaging to deliver it to the lab
A Randox sample drop box Randox COVID-19 PCR drop-off location.jpg
A Randox sample drop box

In May 2020, the company was awarded a £133 million contract by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) without having to compete for a tender. When asked if Paterson had lobbied on behalf of the company a spokesman for DHSC said they were "unable to comment on the personnel matters of other organisations". [21]

On 7 August 2020, the United Kingdom Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency requested Randox to recall the Randox COVID-19 Home Testing Kit due to safety concerns in a measure it described as precautionary. [22]

On 4 November 2020, the UK awarded a 6-month extension of the original contract for £347 million in COVID-19 testing without a public tender. [5] On 16 November, Channel 4's Dispatches said that Randox were managing test processing facilities in a manner which could lead to people not receiving test results, cross contamination through the leaking of test results, and workers facing unsafe conditions; [23] however, Randox denies these claims. [24] In June 2021, the company signed a two-year deal with the British Olympic Association to test the British Team for COVID-19. [25]

In total, Randox was awarded £777m by the UK government for COVID testing and it provided 23 million tests. It contributed to Randox's sales increasing from £118m in 2018 to £218m from January 2019 to June 2020 and to £619m the following year. [26] [1] The company moved from making a loss prior to June 2020 to a pre-tax profit of £275m the following year. [1] The National Audit Office (NAO) reported in March 2022 on the government's contracts with Randox, observing that "the documentation of the decision-making process for such large contracts was inadequate", and Government did "not document key decisions adequately when awarding a contract". The gaps in the audit trail meant the NAO was "not able to provide positive assurance in the normal way, but [the NAO] has not seen any evidence that the government’s contracts with Randox were awarded improperly". [27] [28]

Employment

Several legal actions were taken by many employees against the company. An employee filed a lawsuit against Randox after being discriminated against because of his weight. [29] In addition, its former international business manager was also fired because after being praised for his efforts in India and for a presentation on the business plan for Randox. The tribunal awarded him over £70,000 for Randox's unfair dismissal. [30] With the support of Unite legal services, a female Randox employee sued Randox after a dispute over maternity pay. The court favoured the employee and granted her compensation. [31]

In April 2021, Randox posted notices in its Donegal Gaeltacht facility forbidding employees from speaking any language other than English in the workplace. The company receives significant funding from Údarás na Gaeltachta, which is charged with industrial development in Irish-speaking areas. When challenged, the company withdrew the notices, but the matter received significant attention in the Irish media. [32] [33]

Advertising

In 2024, Randox took down ads for its Type 1 diabetes genetic risk assessment assay amid concerns that it was using fear to sell the test. [34]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Serco</span> British company

Serco Group plc is a British multinational defence, health, space, justice, migration, customer services, and transport company. It is headquartered in Hook, Hart, England. The company operates in Continental Europe, the Middle East, the Asia Pacific region, including Australia and Hong Kong, and North America. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Huntingdon Life Sciences</span> Contract research organisation

Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS) was a contract research organisation (CRO) founded in 1951 in Cambridgeshire, England. It had two laboratories in the United Kingdom and one in the United States. With over 1,600 staff, it was until 2015 the largest non-clinical CRO in Europe. In September 2015, Huntingdon Life Sciences, Harlan Laboratories, GFA, NDA Analytics and LSR associates merged into Envigo, which later sold off the CRO part.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Owen Paterson</span> British former politician

Owen William Paterson is a British former politician who served as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland from 2010 to 2012 and Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs from 2012 to 2014 under Prime Minister David Cameron. A member of the Conservative Party, he served as Member of Parliament (MP) for North Shropshire from 1997 until his resignation in 2021. Paterson was also the President of the Northern Ireland Conservatives.

Abbott Laboratories is an American multinational medical devices and health care company with headquarters in Green Oaks, Illinois, United States. The company was founded by Chicago physician Wallace Calvin Abbott in 1888 to formulate known drugs; today, it sells medical devices, diagnostics, branded generic medicines and nutritional products. It split off its research-based pharmaceuticals business into AbbVie in 2013.

QinetiQ is a multinational defence technology company headquartered in Farnborough, Hampshire. It operates primarily in the defence, security and critical national infrastructure markets and run testing and evaluation capabilities for air, land, sea and target systems.

Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) was an international animal rights campaign to close down Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS), Europe's largest contract animal-testing laboratory. HLS tests medical and non-medical substances on around 75,000 animals every year, from rats to primates. It has been the subject of several major leaks or undercover investigations by activists and reporters since 1989.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Labcorp Drug Development</span> Contract research organization

Labcorp Drug Development is a contract research organization headquartered in Burlington, North Carolina, providing nonclinical, preclinical, clinical and commercialization services to pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. Formerly called Covance, the company is part of Labcorp, which employs more than 70,000 people worldwide.

Quest Diagnostics Incorporated is an American clinical laboratory. A Fortune 500 company, Quest operates in the United States, Puerto Rico, Mexico, and Brazil. Quest also maintains collaborative agreements with various hospitals and clinics across the globe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Penrose</span> British Conservative politician

John David Penrose is a British politician serving as Member of Parliament (MP) for Weston-super-Mare since 2005. A member of the Conservative Party, he was the United Kingdom Anti-Corruption Champion at the Home Office from 2017 until 2022. He resigned on 6 June 2022 as the United Kingdom Anti-Corruption Champion due to the Boris Johnson Partygate scandal.

Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings, more commonly known as Labcorp, is an American healthcare company headquartered in Burlington, North Carolina. It operates one of the largest clinical laboratory networks in the world, with a United States network of 36 primary laboratories. Before a merger with National Health Laboratory in 1995, the company operated under the name Roche BioMedical. Labcorp performs its largest volume of specialty testing at its Center for Esoteric Testing in Burlington, North Carolina, where the company is headquartered. As of 2018, Labcorp processes 2.5 million lab tests weekly.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Bethell, 5th Baron Bethell</span> British politician (born 1967)

James Nicholas Bethell, 5th Baron Bethell is a British hereditary peer and Conservative politician in the House of Lords. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he was Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Innovation at the Department of Health and Social Care and was involved in negotiating various controversial contracts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">British government response to the COVID-19 pandemic</span> UK government response to COVID-19

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom, the UK Government introduced various public health and economic measures to mitigate its impact. Devolution meant that the four nations' administrative responses to the pandemic differed; the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government, and the Northern Ireland Executive produced different policies to those that apply in England. Numerous laws were enacted or introduced throughout the crisis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NHS Test and Trace</span> Government COVID-19 agency in England

NHS Test and Trace was a government-funded service in England, established in 2020 to track and help prevent the spread of COVID-19. The programme is part of the UK Health Security Agency; the service and the agency are headed by Jenny Harries.

Operation Moonshot was a UK government programme to introduce same-day mass testing for COVID-19 in England as a way of enabling large gatherings of people to take place in that country while maintaining control over the virus. According to the British Medical Journal, the programme aimed to deliver 10 million tests per day by 2021.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom, the British government decided in March 2020 to rapidly place contracts and recruit a number of individuals. Shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) were a particular political issue for the second Johnson ministry. This led to the awarding of a number of contracts without a competitive tendering process, and friends of political figures and people who had made political donations were quickly given contracts. As a result, accusations of cronyism were made against the government.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">COVID-19 scams</span> Scams related to COVID-19

COVID-19 scams are scams whose cover story primarily relies on the existence of the COVID-19 pandemic. They have been reported in multiple countries, primarily the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United Kingdom responses to the COVID-19 pandemic</span> Actions by the United Kingdom regarding the COVID-19 pandemic

The United Kingdom's response to the COVID-19 pandemic consists of various measures by the healthcare community, the British and devolved governments, the military and the research sector.

Peter FitzGerald is a Northern Irish biochemist and businessman, and the founder and owner of Randox Health.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Helen Morgan (politician)</span> British Liberal Democrat politician, MP for North Shropshire

Helen Margaret Lillian Morgan is a British Liberal Democrat politician and chartered accountant who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for North Shropshire since 2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom (July–December 2022)</span> Daily UK events related to the pandemic in 2022

The following is a timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom from July 2022 to December 2022.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Tyler, Richard (24 June 2022). "Covid testing lifts Randox Health to £275m profit". The Times. Archived from the original on 29 June 2022. Retrieved 29 June 2022.
  2. ↑ 18 March 2011 – Foster announces 242 new jobs at Randox Laboratories | Northern Ireland Executive. Northernireland.gov.uk (18 March 2011).
  3. ↑ Proteome Sciences Licenses Stroke Biomarkers to Randox Archived 26 January 2013 at archive.today . IVD Technology (5 April 2012).
  4. ↑ "Randox launches COVID-19 testing lab at Heathrow Airport". 27 January 2021.
  5. 1 2 Garside, Juliette; Smith, Joseph (4 November 2020). "Tory-linked firm involved in testing failure given new £347m Covid contract". The Guardian. London.
  6. ↑ The Friday Interview – Peter Fitz-Gerald, Randox Laboratories – IDA Ireland Investment Promotion Agency Archived 31 March 2013 at the Wayback Machine . Idaireland.com.
  7. ↑ Lawrence, Felicity (5 November 2021). "Lobbying for 'naked' bacon: how the Owen Paterson scandal began". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 7 November 2021.
  8. ↑ Taylor, Charlie (4 December 2020). "Inside Randox, the Northern Irish firm at the heart of UK's Covid testing effort". The Irish Times. Retrieved 17 November 2021.
  9. ↑ Newenham, Pamela (20 October 2014). "Randox Teoranta to invest €25m in Co Donegal". The Irish Times. Retrieved 17 November 2021.
  10. ↑ Wood, Greg (5 November 2021). "Is Randox a suitable sponsor for Grand National after Paterson sleaze row?". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 17 November 2021.
  11. ↑ Davies, Rob (9 November 2021). "Randox: how one-man-band operation became a Covid testing giant". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 17 November 2021.
  12. ↑ Morgan-Bentley, Paul; Billy, Kenber (12 November 2021). "Army had to help Owen Paterson firm Randox with lucrative Covid contract" . Retrieved 17 November 2021.
  13. ↑ "Randox expands toxicology service by buying Manchester lab". BBC News. 1 May 2014. Retrieved 18 June 2018.
  14. ↑ Parveen, Nazia (19 February 2017). "Manchester lab's drug tests may have been manipulated". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 23 November 2021.
  15. ↑ "Killer drug-drivers' conviction quash bid". BBC News. 22 November 2017. Retrieved 27 January 2018.
  16. ↑ Devlin, Hannah; Dodd, Vikram (21 November 2017). "Police review 10,000 cases in forensics data 'manipulation' inquiry". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 27 January 2018.
  17. ↑ Keeling, Neal (16 June 2021). "Breakthrough for GMP in five-year probe of suspected rogue forensic scientists". Manchester Evening News. Retrieved 11 April 2024.
  18. ↑ Trager2018-12-13T08:24:00+00:00, Rebecca (13 December 2018). "UK forensic lab misconduct results in dozens of convictions being overturned". Chemistry World. Retrieved 17 April 2024.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  19. ↑ Evans, Robb; Pegg, David; Lawrence, Felicity (8 April 2019). "MP Owen Paterson lobbied government for firm he worked for". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 3 September 2019.
  20. ↑ "Owen Paterson: Minister Stephen Barclay expresses regret over vote". BBC News. 9 November 2021. Retrieved 17 November 2021.
  21. ↑ Neate, Rupert; Garside, Juliette; Lawrence, Felicity; Evans, Rob (11 May 2020). "Healthcare firm advised by Owen Paterson won £133m coronavirus testing contract unopposed". The Guardian. London. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 11 May 2020.
  22. ↑ United Kingdom Department of Health and Social Care (7 August 2020). "Update on Randox test kits". gov.uk. Retrieved 8 August 2020.
  23. ↑ "Dispatches uncovers serious failings at one of UK's largest COVID-Testing Labs". Dispatches. Channel 4. 16 November 2020. Retrieved 27 November 2020.
  24. ↑ Halliday, Gillian; Cross, Gareth (17 November 2020). "Covid testing firm Randox denies Channel 4 'serious failings' claims after undercover probe". Belfast Telegraph. Retrieved 27 November 2020.
  25. ↑ "Randox agrees a deal to test Team GB for Olympics". Belfasttelegraph.
  26. ↑ Paul, Mark (31 May 2021). "Randox diagnostics records big sales surge on Covid-19 testing". The Irish Times. Retrieved 29 June 2022.
  27. ↑ House of Commons Public Accounts Committee, Government’s contracts with Randox Laboratories Ltd: Inquiry, accessed 29 July 2022
  28. ↑ "Investigation into the government's contracts with Randox Laboratories Ltd – National Audit Office (NAO) Report".
  29. ↑ "Tribunal rules obese employees in Northern Ireland can get disability rights". BBC News. 10 February 2015. Retrieved 17 November 2021.
  30. ↑ "Tribunal criticises Randox over unfair dismissal". BBC News. 9 May 2012.
  31. ↑ http://www.thompsonstradeunionlaw.co.uk/news/unite-legal-services-maternity-pay.html [ dead link ]
  32. ↑ "English must be spoken at all times. Failure to do so is unacceptable – polasaí teanga comhlacht Gaeltachta" (in Irish).
  33. ↑ Cross, Gareth. "Randox apology after telling Donegal staff to speak English". belfasttelegraph. Retrieved 9 November 2021.
  34. ↑ Mahase, E (25 March 2024). "Type 1 diabetes: Randox removes adverts after claims that it was using fear to sell genetic test". BMJ (Clinical Research Ed.). 384: q744. doi:10.1136/bmj.q744. PMID   38527741 . Retrieved 17 April 2024.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.