Livingston-headquartered FlexMedical, which offers design, development and manufacturing services to customers in human point-of-care testing, doubled revenue to £3m in the year to 30th April 2021, and is on track for revenue in the region of £4.5m in the current year.

FlexMedical’s customers range from start-ups and spin-outs to established global corporates, with FlexMedical supporting them in the development of tests for the management and diagnosis of multiple diseases and medical conditions - including respiratory disease, sepsis, kidney disease, heart disease, diabetes, and antimicrobial resistance.

Currently, around 70% of FlexMedical’s revenue comes from outside the UK and the company plans to increasingly target the North American market in 2022. The global human point-of-care diagnostics market is estimated to grow from approximately $30 billion to $50bn within the next four years, with the Covid pandemic’s impact on healthcare increasing the trend of managing patients at home or in non-hospital care settings.

FlexMedical was founded in 2015 by CEO Kevin Fallon and chief technology officer Murray Whyte, with chief scientific officer Donogh FitzGerald joining the company in 2019, with all three senior executives having formerly worked in the leadership team of Alere, which was acquired by US-based Abbot, one of the world’s largest diagnostics companies, in 2016.

Kevin Fallon, CEO and co-founder, said: “Human diagnostics is very much in the headlines due to the pandemic, with governments and investors alike having their eyes opened to the power of diagnostics, particularly around point-of-care, and we’ve seen that impact positively on the business. If you look at the UK alone, healthcare economics now demand that more people are managed at home to lower the chance of the NHS being overburdened.”

“Other than an initial lockdown wobble, we have been very fortunate to see continuing sustained growth since the pandemic started. While the manufacture and development of Covid tests is a relatively small part of the business, and in fact we were growing as rapidly pre-pandemic, what we think is more important is that we are definitely seeing an indirect upside in terms of increased investor activity and a greater appetite and take-up of point-of-care technology in general.”

While Mr Fallon says that supply chains were “definitely impacted by the pandemic”, with “some price increases but more notably increased lead times”, he added that Brexit has added “complexities” when it comes to taxes, duties, shipping, and hiring.

While human diagnostics is FlexMedical’s primary market, the company recently completed the development of a test for use in the food and drink sector, and is also eyeing other fast-growth sectors including agri-food and wearable technology.

Mr Fallon added that FlexMedical will remain self-funded in the immediate term, although he is not ruling out external investment or acquisitions in the medium term. He said: “Our focus for the next twelve months centres on the significant growth opportunities we have in international markets. At the same time, if we spot value-adding growth by way of acquisition, then that’s certainly something we’re going to look at.”