CRAIGAVON, Northern Ireland, March 08, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Almac Group – a contract research organization headquartered in Northern Ireland, with operations across the U.S. – announced today that its Diagnostics Business Unit will open a companion diagnostic development facility located in Research Triangle Park, N.C. The facility will provide a U.S. base to support Almac’s increased demand for its Companion Diagnostics (CDx) development partnerships as well as a Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA)-accredited laboratory to support the downstream delivery of assays for patient testing.
Along with headquarters in Europe and partnerships in Asia, this facility will provide Almac Diagnostics with a strong global presence to continue to meet increasing customer demand and to support its growing client base. With more than 4,000 employees across the globe and more than 1,200 in the U.S., Almac continues to grow in employee number and footprint with this North Carolina location.
The 150,000-square-foot, custom-designed facility contains molecular biology laboratories, as well as office space. The state-of-the-art laboratory is equipped with microarray and quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction (qPCR) platforms appropriate for companion diagnostic development; it will operate both research-use-only and clinical diagnostic tests. Plans are also in place to add additional technology platforms including Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) in the coming year.
“The opening of our new CDx facility in the U.S. is Almac Diagnostics’ latest initiative to better serve our global Biopharma partners. As we experience increased client demand for our companion diagnostic development services, this latest expansion will significantly enhance Almac’s offering, increasing capacity and further demonstrating our commitment to personalized healthcare,” said Professor Paul Harkin, President and Managing Director of Almac Diagnostics.
About Almac Group
‘Partnering to Advance Human Health’
The Almac Group is an established contract development and manufacturing organization that provides an extensive range of integrated services to over 600 companies globally within the pharmaceutical and biotech sectors. The services range from R&D, biomarker discovery and development, API manufacture, formulation development, clinical trial supply, IXRS® technology (IVRS/IWRS) through to commercial-scale manufacture.
The international company is a privately owned organization that has organically grown over 40 years and now employs in excess of 4,000 highly skilled personnel. Almac is headquartered in Craigavon, Northern Ireland with operations across the US (Pennsylvania, North Carolina and California) and in Asia (Singapore and Tokyo).
Almac Diagnostics is one of five business units operating under the ownership of the Almac Group. The global company partners with the biopharmaceutical industry supporting the discovery, development and delivery of companion diagnostics. In addition, Almac Diagnostics has a pipeline of proprietary oncology based tests in development in therapeutic areas including breast, colon, ovarian, prostate and lung cancer.
For more information, visit www.almacgroup.com or e-mail media@almacgroup.com.
CONTACT: CONTACT: Nicole Lasorda Buchanan Public Relations 610.228.0454 nicole@buchananpr.com
