YORK Nutritional Labora-tory, the pioneering medical research company whose work on food intolerance has been showered with praise, will soon have an exact twin company in Austria.

A group of Austrian business people has arrived at the laboratory at Osbaldwick to prepare for today's signature on a 15-year "distribution and authorised testing" agreement.

Under the agreement, businessman Cristoph Eliskases will set up a new company called YorkTEST Handels GmbHin Hall, near Innsbruck, to offer Austria's ten million people the same tests for food intolerance available in York.

The licensing arrangement will allow the Austrian firm to use York's technical know-how, brand and trade marks, intellectual property and marketing knowledge there, while using its own staff, equipment and replicated laboratory.

John Graham, chief executive of York Nutritional Laboratory which three years ago was voted Evening Press Business of the Year, expressed his "delight" and said the agreement - which should net his firm about £250,000 in revenue in its first two years - was the way forward.

"We could continue to receive blood samples from all over the world to test for allergies, but people prefer the testing to be closer to home. We aim to set up a joint venture in Hong Kong in the summer in which we will have a 51 per cent shareholding."

A small subsidiary already existed in Florida, but in less than six months a similar arrangement to the Austrian one was expected to be in place there.

Mr Eliskases first heard about the work of York Nutritional Laboratories through a distributor of the food intolerance tests in Germany.

He gathered together a group of academics and conducted clinical trials on 60 eczema sufferers focusing on food intolerance. The results were so encouraging that he, his business partner and marketing director, Doris Pichler, approached YNL's administrative office in Holgate Park, York.

After liaising with YNLs export manager Isabelle Gantier, who speaks six different languages, the new partnership was forged.

Mr Eliskases said: "From the first time I came into contact with YNL I felt that there were widespread possibilities for its 'foodSCAN' products.

"I met a patient who had suffered with eczema for more than six years and had tried all the medical possibilities without success until she took the food intolerance test.

"This woman had nearly given up hope of ever being able to wear anything other than trousers and long-sleeved shirts again. She told me that after four weeks of altering her diet she was free of her symptoms."

Updated: 10:30 Tuesday, February 12, 2002