THE Co Antrim company awarded a series of major UK Government contracts to provide Covid-19 tests recorded a pre-tax profit of £275 million in 2021.
Randox Holdings, which is headquartered in Crumlin, recorded a turnover of £618m in the 12 months to June 2021, 183 per cent higher than the £218m it reported for the 18-month period to June 2020, when it posted a £12m loss.
Owned by Dr Peter Fitzgerald, the company landed 22 contracts from the UK’s Department of Health between January 2020 and December 2021, capped at £776.9m.
The contracts were subsequently investigated by the UK’s National Audit Office (NAO), which found no evidence that they had been awarded improperly.
But the NAO criticised "gaps in the audit trail". It said 60 per cent of the contracts, worth £463.5m, were awarded directly without competition under emergency procurement rules.
It found the Department of Health did not "adequately" document key decisions, nor "fully" disclose ministerial meetings with Randox.
In its accounts, published fully on Companies House, the directors of Randox said the award of the first Covid testing contract in March 2020 immediately resulted in it switching from a 9-5 business to a 24/7 operation.
Randox said as of June 2022, it has provided 23 million tests for the UK’s National Testing Programme and for international travel firms.
The massive Covid testing contracts resulted in Randox more than doubling its workforce to 3,400.
Alongside the UK and Ireland, its operations span the USA, Dubai, France, Italy, Poland, India, China and Puerto Rico.
Randox also provides tests for cardiovascular disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s and stroke.
The company said it manufactured a total of 4.3 billion diagnostics tests in 2021, stating: “More than five per cent of the world’s population receive medical diagnosis using Randox products each year.”
