Stake sold in plant test firm Forsite

Forsite, which develops tests to detect diseases in plants, was originally formed in 2007 as a spin off of the Government agency Central Science Laboratory, now the Food and Environment Research Agency (Fera).

Fera said the investment in the company, of which it remains a shareholder, will enable it to grow at its base on the Sand Hutton Applied Innovation Campus, on the same site as Fera.

Abingdon Health said the acquisition of the controlling stake in Forsite and subsequent investment would enable them to increase manufacturing, as Forsite’s Sand Hutton manufacturing premises has the capacity to produce many millions of lateral flow tests per year, which would enable it to manufacture on-site testing kits for its own testing products too.

Forsite’s 15-strong team, including chief executive Chris Danks, remain in place.

Chris Hand, chief executive of Abingdon Health, said: “Forsite brings an established customer base and a manufacturing infrastructure, which will enable us to produce our own diagnostic products.

“Abingdon now has the ability to develop, manufacture and sell a wide spectrum of diagnostic reagents and kits.

The acquisition of Forsite follows a £3 million investment from technology commercialisation and investment group Imperial Innovations Group plc, after which it bought a controlling stake in Molecular Vision, which is developing a low-cost, lab-quality, point of care diagnostic test called BioLED that can simultaneously test for multiple disease markers.

Mr Hand added: “We continue to look for other appropriate opportunities to strengthen our business and provide Abingdon with the critical mass to enable it to exploit opportunities within the US$11.2 billion global immunodiagnostics market.”

Adrian Belton, chief executive of Fera, said: “We welcome this development which complements Fera’s own ambitions to grow it’s diagnostics capability in the core areas of plant and food field based testing.”