º£½ÇÊÓÆµ

Oops.

Our website is temporarily unavailable in your location.

We are working hard to get it back online.

PRIVACY
Tech

Loughborough Covid-19 test lab will create 400 jobs

It comes as the number of confirmed coronavirus cases continues to rise

Charnwood Campus in Loughborough

Some 400 jobs are to be created at a new Covid-19 test lab in north Leicestershire.

The joint public/private sector facility will be the º£½ÇÊÓÆµ’s seventh “Lighthouse Lab” – created to supplement existing NHS labs working on the government’s National Testing Programme.

It comes as the number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 continue to rise after dropping substantially in the summer.

On Thursday, the government said there had been 1,735 newly-confirmed cases – wit the seven day average standing at 1,435.

The Office for National Statistics estimated that 1 in 1,900 people in England had coronavirus in the week ending 20 August – compared to 1 in 2,200 the previous week.

The new lab is being opened at the Charnwood Campus in Loughborough – a former research and development base for Astra Zeneca and now part of an Enterprise Zone specialising in science and technology.

It should be able to process 50,000 tests a day by the end of the year from care homes, Covid-19 testing centres and home testing kits.

It will be operated by global diagnostics company PerkinElmer in partnership with the Department of Health and Social Care.