Exciting prospects in clinical diagnostics: the West of Scotland experience

This year at R-Biopharm Rhône (RBR) the company is celebrating its first anniversary serving NHS microbiology laboratories in the UK. Over the past two years it has invested £2.5 million in a new facility in the West of Scotland Science Park, and moved in on 10 June last year. The parent company, R-Biopharm AG (RBAG), has over 20 years’ experience of research, development and manufacture of clinical diagnostics tests and is an international leader in stool testing.
 It was decided to set up the clinical business in the UK because, with the innovative products manufactured by RBAG, the company felt assured of success in this market. Additionally, a reputation for high-level customer service, established in the food and feed industry for more than 20 years, was vital in this very demanding business.
 The company’s new building is home to approximately 45 employees working in research and development, quality and production laboratories, administration, warehousing and distribution for both the food and feed and clinical diagnostics business. It has been a busy and exciting year with new colleagues joining the company and new products launched.
 As well as new employees, the company is fortunate to have very loyal staff, as 16 of its 45 employees each have at least 15 years’ service. This type of experience and loyalty is very rare and customers notice the difference. Staff at RBR also entered a team in the East Kilbride Walk for Life event that raised tens of thousands of pounds for charity.

Focus on norovirus detection
September 2009 saw RBR exhibiting products for the first time in the UK, attending both the Health Protection Agency (HPA) conference in Warwick and the IBMS Congress at the international Convention Centre (ICC) in Birmingham. Ian Miller from the West of Scotland Specialist Virology Centre won the IBMS prize for best virology poster, when he presented his comparative study of the RIDA QUICK Norovirus kit and the laboratory’s in-house polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test.
 The RIDA QUICK Norovirus kit detects both GI and GII strains in an easy-to-use rapid format. In his poster, Ian concluded that: “Overall, the sensitivity for individual samples was 81%. Specificity appeared excellent, no outbreaks were missed. The positive predictive value for disease using the RIDA QUICK Norovirus is likely to be better than PCR. This test is likely to be a useful adjunct to norovirus outbreak diagnosis and the rapid institution of infection control measures”.

Another busy month followed in November with Infection 09, and the BSMT enteric workshop. At Infection 09, another poster presentation was given by Dr Andrew Kirby of the Royal Liverpool University Hospital, this time comparing norovirus RIDASCREEN EIA test and RIDA QUICK immunochromatograph to real-time PCR (RT-PCR). Dr Kirby concluded that: “Compared to RT-PCR the RIDASCREEN EIA test and RIDA QUICK immunochromatograph had a sensitivity of 70% and 79%, respectively. Each kit tested is 100% specific”.