TREK Diagnostic Systems, Inc. (TREK Diagnostic), a provider of diagnostic systems for microbiology labs, has expanded its East Grinstead, UK, manufacturing and research and development facility to meet increasing global demand for its Sensititre product line for susceptibility and identification testing.
The expanded facility has been fully validated, and will continue to deliver the same high-quality Sensititre products, including the Sensititre microbroth dilution plates used in clinical and veterinary microbiology laboratories worldwide.
Just a short distance from TREK’s original UK location, the new facility at Units 17 – 19 Birches Industrial Estate, East Grinstead, manufactures standard and custom susceptibility plates. Customers use these plates to determine what drugs and dosage levels are required to treat bacterial and yeast infections. Since the tests match the treatment course with the appropriate drugs, this helps address the growing problem of drug resistance.
More than 100 people, including East Grinstead Town Councillor Bob Mainstone, representatives from U.K. Trade and Investment and the town government, TREK employees and their families, attended a grand-opening celebration on Monday, hosted by President of Magellan Clinical Diagnostics, James Whelan. The event included a ribbon-cutting ceremony, site tour, and fun, learn-about-microbiology activities for children.
“We outgrew our previous facility thanks to increasing demand for our expanding line of susceptibility products, which provide our customers with the cost-effective, and reliable microbiology results they need to make more-informed treatment decisions,” said James Whelan. “The proliferation of drug-resistant infections means that clinicians and infection-control experts are looking to us to increase reportable and non-reportable compounds and treatment options that they can evaluate. We have a number of new IVD and RUO plates in development that we hope to launch in 2010, including a Mycobacterium tuberculosis susceptibility plate for first- and second-line drugs.”
During his remarks, Mr. Whelan spoke of TREK’s decision to build the new facility in East Grinstead, “We have been a part of the community here for more than 30 years, and we’re proud of our seasoned, experienced workforce. So when it came time to choose a location where we could expand, East Grinstead was the natural choice. Our new facility gives us the capacity to meet customer needs and allows for future expansion.” Currently, 69 of TREK’s 180 employees work at the East Grinstead location.
Commenting on the expansion, U.K. Minister for Trade, Investment and Small Business Lord Davies of Abersoch said in a statement, “The U.K. not only has the largest pharmaceuticals industry in Europe, it is also the number one location in Europe for R&D. Globally, one in five of the world’s medicines were developed in the U.K. Although the UK accounts for just three percent of the global pharmaceutical market, we attract 10 percent of its R&D. I warmly welcome Magellan Bioscience’s decision to expand its operations in the U.K. and look forward to hearing more about its successes.”