Tepnel Research Products & Services, part of the UK-based company's life sciences group, has opened a new pharmaceutical testing facility in Livingston, Scotland.
The facility, part funded by Scottish Enterprise Edinburgh and Lothian (SEEL), will house Tepnel's existing analytical chemistry, bioanalysis and microbiology services and enable Tepnel to further expand its service offering to the pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical industry.
The new services, which were opened by Jack Perry, chief executive of Scottish Enterprise, include a high-throughput genotyping service aimed at the clinical/research market and a custom ELISA development service for pre-clinical and clinical phases of pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical drug development.
These new services will take advantage of the LIMS infrastructure of the new facility to provide an efficient and audit trailed process from sample receipt through to data handling/reporting.
Perry said: "The global biopharmaceutical market is worth around £24bn and is expected to experience double digit growth over the next few years. With pharmaceutical companies increasingly outsourcing clinical trials and analysis to help to get their products to market faster, companies like Tepnel are ideally placed to capture a share of that growth."
Tepnel's chief executive officer, Ben Matzilevich, said: "The facility is an important component of our long-term strategy that will allow Tepnel to extend its market presence in the fast-growing biological medicines sector. Phase I will be fully operational from September which will enable us to meet the increased customer demand for our outsourced services."