A state-of-the-art Lighthouse lab facility will be developed in Leicestershire

A state-of-the-art Lighthouse lab facility will be developed in Leicestershire to upsurge the UK’s COVID-19 testing capability, which will generate four-hundred jobs. The UK Department of Health and Social Care’s Lighthouse Lab, Charnwood Campus, Loughborough is a partnership with PerkinElmer.

The major lab will be the seventh supplementing NHS labs, processing tests across the National Testing Programme, and the East Midland’s first facility, following sites in Alderley Park, Glasgow, Milton Keynes, Cambridge, Newport and Antrim.

Charnwood’s Lighthouse Lab strives to process fifty-thousand tests every twenty-four hours by the end of the year and will be managed and delivered by PerkinElmer.

Gosia Khrais, Charnwood Campus Commercial Director, stated: “We expressed our readiness to join the national effort to fight the pandemic very early on and worked closely with the Department of Health and Social Care to build a robust business case for close collaboration between Charnwood Campus and PerkinElmer – with Charnwood providing the building and facility management services – and PerkinElmer recruiting a skilled workforce and performing the testing. The proposal has been supported by Charnwood Borough Council which helped promote the Campus site and Loughborough as the best location for the new lab. The teams deployed to lead these projects are highly qualified experts focused on delivering the best outcomes. The Charnwood Lighthouse Lab will significantly accelerate current COVID-19 testing capacity, helping to control the spread of the virus and prevent spikes in the number of cases. The successful delivery of the project will help protect lives, the NHS and the economy by allowing us to test and confirm or rule out COVID quickly and on a mass scale. People with a negative test result will be able to return to work without the need to self-isolate. Testing also allows us to quickly identify and isolate those with a positive test result, helping to contain the spread of the virus. I am pleased that Charnwood Campus’ world-class facility will be part of the largest network of diagnostic testing facilities in British history and that Loughborough will play a key role in scaling up the UK’s testing capacity and helping to fight against the virus.”

Leader of Charnwood Borough Council, Cllr Jonathan Morgan, stated: “The Lighthouse Lab will see four-hundred jobs being created, which will be crucial in supporting the national testing effort, as well as providing a boost to the local and regional economy in these challenging times. I am pleased Charnwood can play such an important role in tackling the pandemic. The Lighthouse Lab will also help to grow the life sciences and pharmaceutical sectors in the region, providing opportunities to train and develop life science professionals and building on the East Midlands’ and Loughborough’s reputation for outstanding pharmaceutical research and development.’’