A coronavirus testing firm has opened new state-of-the-art testing clinics in Shrewsbury and Manchester following a year of growth - with plans to open next in the Ƶ's two biggest cities.
BioGrad Diagnostics has opened its new facilities to help meet the demand of clients after a "successful" 12 months at its flagship Liverpool laboratory.
The company provided over 200,000 Covid-19 tests in Liverpool since the first lockdown began at its antigen and antibody testing facilities, with its face-to-face testing carried out by trained professionals.
Next, the firm has plans to open clinics in Birmingham and London in January 2021.
Dr Natalie Kenny, CEO, said the first quarter of the new year will see BioGrad Diagnostics aim to scale up and provide hundreds of thousands more tests, as the pandemic continues.
She said: “As it became clear that the economy would be devastated by lockdown, we wanted to contribute to keeping schools and businesses open with the provision of fast, accurate Covid testing, and we had lots of labs which were idle due to the restrictions in our core education business, so we began doing what we know best - science.
“Since then we have processed tens of thousands of tests per week and have defined the gold standard in Covid-19 and antigen testing which ensures that we have quickly gained an excellent reputation in the sector. It is really important to me that we remain affordable, so that anyone can have peace of mind when they want to see the family at Christmas safely.
Don't miss a thing - sign up for your free North West newsletter - and follow us on LinkedIn
Email newsletters
BusinessLive is your home for business news from around the North West- and you can stay in touch with all the latest news from Greater Manchester, Liverpool City Region, Cheshire, Lancashire and Cumbria through our email alerts.
You can sign up to receive daily morning news bulletins from every region we cover and to weekly email bulletins covering key economic sectors from manufacturing to technology and enterprise. And we'll send out breaking news alerts for any stories we think you can't miss.
Visit our email preference centre to sign up to all the latest news from BusinessLive.
For all the latest stories, views, polls and more - and the news as it breaks - .
“Opening sites in Shrewsbury and Manchester, with clinics to come in Birmingham and London, shows that we are determined to do all we can to look after the general public and this really is just the beginning of what we expect to be a huge 2021 for BioGrad.”
BioGrad Diagnostics began providing Covid testing as part of its work in education, at the start of the first national lockdown.
Dr Kenny said the aim was to help schools stay open through regular testing at the cost of delivering it.
Very quickly it became apparent that the economy needed to have wider, faster, more reliable testing, at accessible pricing, she said.
