THE FRIDAY INTERVIEW:FEW BUSINESS decisions in reality come down to a life or death scenario. But the life's work of Peter Fitz-Gerald is likely to be one of the things that makes the difference between a very ill person making a positive recovery and departing to the next world.
FitzGerald’s decision to set up Randox Laboratories in Co Antrim more than 27 years ago was life changing, not just for him, but for the thousands of people who have probably never heard of the company but who might not be here today without it.
FitzGerald and Randox have pioneered the development of ground-breaking diagnostic tests that are used primarily in hospitals, research laboratories, pharmaceutical companies and veterinary laboratories. Every second of every day, 75 tests are conducted worldwide using its products, the company claims. These chemical tests can help in the diagnosis of an array of medical issues and life-threatening illnesses.
Randox developed the first commercially marketed protein biochip and assay system. The biochip, which is no bigger than the size of an average stamp, can be employed to process thousands of biological materials in seconds. It is this type of technological breakthrough that could prove to be a key component in the global fight against the H1N1 flu outbreak.
While the Crumlin, Co Antrim-based company employs 840 people in 26 countries, it is one of the North’s best kept secrets. How else do you explain the relatively low profile of a privately owned business that generates revenues of more than £50 million (€59 million) a year?
FitzGerald formally established Randox in 1982 but since childhood he had nursed a passion for medical research.
Neither of his parents had been involved in the world of medicine – his father was an engineer and his mother a housewife – but he was convinced from an early age about what he wanted to do. “I always wanted to be involved in helping to cure or solve illnesses, and I always wanted to create something as well,” he says. “And the only way I felt I could do this was by setting up my own company because you have more independence and you can take your own line more. I was brought up in a rural environment, I grew up on a smallholding, common in Ireland, so commerce was never too far away in many ways.”
After studying biochemistry at university and completing a PhD in London, the natural thing for FitzGerald to do next was to go to the US to continue his work. But that was not part of his plan. “I wanted to create something, so I came back to Northern Ireland, to my home environment, which I understood and where I felt I could start something easier.”
Initially, he took what at the time would have been viewed as a relatively low-paid job at Queen’s University Belfast as a researcher. But in his late 20s, he decided to go out on his own and start working for himself.
“I set the business up at the back of my parents’ house, in what was previously a hen house and stables. My parents helped me when I started the business, they were very supportive. I think that helped greatly in the early days,” FitzGerald recalls.
“When I was starting I knew nothing about this industry and I had to really scrape. I wasn’t worried about failing – I had nothing to lose. I never worried about failing. You don’t want to fail: you just work out as logically as you can what needs to be done and you endeavour to do it. I still don’t worry about failing – I don’t plan to fail. I don’t feel that I am a risk taker, I am not a gambler.”
When the business outgrew the early laboratory, FitzGerald moved it up the road to an old apple farm that had cold-storage rooms – the perfect location from which to grow Randox.
More than two decades later, Randox is now in the middle of a £15 million expansion programme to extend its existing facilities. These are hidden away modestly in the lush green Co Antrim countryside, with Lough Neagh providing the backdrop to a world-class research and development operation. As you approach the site, there is no audacious corporate sign, just a simple, almost hidden, one-word confirmation that you have arrived at Randox.
Earlier this month Randox announced an Invest Northern Ireland-backed £9.2 million investment injection to boost its research and development capabilities.
FitzGerald believes Randox achieved the success it enjoys today by following an exact formula: “We don’t like to call ourselves a family business. We are an independent company but we have a distinct culture and we like to think of ourselves as being part of a Randox family. People in Northern Ireland respond to being included and to issues being discussed with them and I assume as long as you don’t ask people to do anything you wouldn’t do yourself then it works.
“One of the key things for me is that I have always had the right colleagues working with me and that we have reinvested our profits back into the business. We rarely take dividends out – I believe it is vital to reinvest in the product and the market. Businesses have to make a profit but if it’s obsession about personal profit, I feel that backfires – it is good to have a broader aim.”
FitzGerald and the family who backed him in the early days have become very wealthy as a result of Randox. He is estimated to be one of the wealthiest individuals in the North with a personal fortune worth tens of millions of pounds.
But it is clear that money has not been the key driver for FitzGerald – otherwise he would have sold out years ago to the “fairly frequent offers” he receives for the company.
“This is a very exciting period in medicine,” says FitzGerald. “In medicine a lot of decisions are made through an intuitive or empirical approach – in other words, they are not based on solid scientific or objective evidence and, the more we can do to help give clinicians facts and objective information, the more we can help identify what the disease malfunction is or the condition is.”
According to FitzGerald, the bottom line for Randox is about “saving more lives”. “Diagnostics as an industry is only about 1/20th of the size of the pharmaceutical industry,” he says. “Yet if you don’t diagnose right then how can you give the right medical intervention?”
Randox is constantly involved in clinical trials and, according to FitzGerald, one trial currently running at St James’s Hospital in Dublin is an example of how the company can make a difference. “We have done a lot of work on cardiovascular disease and we have new tests and new information from the St James’s Hospital trial which shows that we can get more accurate information. This in turn can improve the survival chances of 20 per cent of people who have emergency treatment.”
Randox has developed close relationships with hospitals and clinicians in the Republic, Britain and Europe. But surprisingly it has historically struggled to convince hospitals in the North to get involved in trials, despite the benefits they could deliver for the local community.
This is now changing, according to Fitz-Gerald, but the awkward relationship the company has had with hospitals in the North has been mirrored somewhat in its past dealings with Invest Northern Ireland.
Last year Northern Ireland lost out on a €7.5 million investment by Randox after the company chose to locate a new manufacturing, research and development project in Co Donegal. FitzGerald says the company wanted to extend the “gene pool” from which it recruited and it also had the opportunity to avail of a high-tech manufacturing facility in Dungloe.
He does admit, however, that in the past the company “found Invest NI quite bureaucratic and slow. They have since been a lot better but we did find them quite slow to deal with.”
FitzGerald is a fan of the North’s Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Investment, Arlene Foster, saying she is “very progressive” and this in turn is good for business.
The Randox facility in Co Donegal starts manufacturing next week, and FitzGerald is looking forward to this development.
“There are so many opportunities now for Randox. I don’t think about limitations, I don’t want limitations,” he says. “I have a plan for Randox – it may sound grandiose but I want it to become one of the biggest diagnostic companies in the world. I don’t have a timeframe for when this will happen – in fact I have no idea when it will happen, but I do believe in sustained and relentless growth.”
ON THE RECORD
Name: Dr Peter FitzGerald
Born: Co Antrim, 1950
Position: Founder and managing director of Randox Laboratories
Family: Married with two children
Background: Studied biochemistry at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, and did a PhD at the National Institute for Medical Research in London. Worked at Queen's University Belfast and then set up Randox in 1982. Won the 2004 Ernst & Young entrepreneur of the year award.
Something you might expect: He is competitive. Randox is the recipient of awards including: 2009 Invest NI innovator of the year; 2007 CBI international company of the year; 2007 Chamber of Commerce regional award for achievement in international business; and the Queen's Award for Enterprise five times.
Something that might surprise: He likes to hunt.
