Progenika to invest 5.4 million to increase headquarters four-fold

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Biotechnology company Progenika, located at Vizcaya technology park's Biogune sector, announced plans yesterday to invest 5.4 million euros on a 2,800 square-metre building opposite its present headquarters. The building will enable Progenika to increase its facilities four-fold and comply with the enlargement project included in its strategic plan. The move is scheduled to take place in summer 2008.

Devoted to developing functional genomic tools for new diagnosis methods and the identification of therapeutic bulls-eyes, the company currently has two products on the market, one being Lipochip, which diagnoses family hypercholesterolemia, 10,000 units of which are scheduled to be produced this year alone. The other is IBD-chip, which predicts the way inflammatory bowel disease is likely to develop, and has been sold in Spain since last January. The latter is now being assessed in the USA, Japan and Northern Europe and it should be on the market there by the end of 2006. The firm expects to produce 80,000 units over the next five years.

Progenika has two other DNA chips in the pipeline. Bloodchip, used to genotype blood donors in the European Union, will be on the market in 2007. The other, Hematochip, is for use in classifying blood neoplasias.

Geographical expansion is another cornerstone of the Progenika strategic plan. Although the company launched Progenika UK in London as a commercial office in July 2005, the United States is the target for the firm's production move abroad. Progenika is currently in talks with local investors about whether the new production centre should be built in West Virginia or elsewhere on the East Coast. What is clear is that Progenika UNA will be making the DNA chips developed at Progenika-Derio while developing new products itself. The new company will be up and running in 2007 with a 15-strong workforce.