The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Jobs under threat with plans to close city lab
Global pharma firm tells 29 employees lab will close next year with work moving to France
Global pharma company Eurofins has told workers it intends to close its Dundee lab in a blow to the city’s life science sector. The 29 Dundee-based employees were informed of the decision at the firm’s offices at Dundee Technology Park on Tuesday afternoon. The laboratory is to close at the end of January as Eurofins plans to move its UK drug discovery business to France. Following the meeting, employees received a letter, seen by The Courier, which stated: “As we advised in the meeting, the work will no longer be carried out from the Dundee premises (which will close) and instead be carried out from Poitiers, France. “As a result of this decision it is possible that the business may have to make redundancies, although (as you were informed), we will fully explore redeployment opportunities to avoid redundancies wherever possible. “We are therefore working with all employees of the company who are facing a potential transfer-redundancy situation.” Eurofins is an international group of laboratories headquartered in Brussels and is valued at around €8 billion. The history of the Dundee laboratory goes back to 1999 when it was set up by US company Argonex and was initially branded Upstate. It was acquired by the current owners in 2014. An insider said: “The proposal to close the Dundee office is being put out to consultation and the workers have been told that relocation is a possibility. “The work carried out in Dundee is highly technical drug discovery, with highly qualified specialist staff. The clients are big pharma firms and there has been no reduction of work coming in. “The staff’s reaction has ranged from anger to numbness.” The company provided a statement confirming a strategic review of the Dundee operation. This was was under way with a proposal to move the “portfolio of products and services” to the Eurofins Cerep site in Poitiers which has “many years of experience offering kinase and over in vitro assay services”. “This proposal will put Eurofins Pharama Discovery Services in a stronger position to continue to support the high quality and timely services that our customers rely upon and which has been conducted at the Dundee site for more than a decade,” the statement added. “A decision on this strategic proposal will come in the next one to two months at which time more details will be provided.”