Monday, April 21, 2008

Northern Irish firms ponder home in the Hub

By Ryan McBride

A bevy of Northern Ireland tech companies visited Boston this month in search of business deals, but one of them -- Randox Laboratories Ltd., a provider of laboratory diagnostics -- had a head start.

Headquartered in Crumlin, Northern Ireland, Randox opened its first sales office in the Boston area about a year ago and could continue to grow here depending on how well the local market of research institutions and clinical labs adopts its diagnostic kits, said Rajneesh Mathur, the company's product specialist based in Quincy.

Massachusetts' top politicians and economic development officials welcomed Randox and 11 other companies from Northern Ireland, citing the shared language and heritage between the country and the commonwealth. Among the Bay State's brass to meet the companies in Boston were Lt. Gov. Timothy Murray and Daniel O'Connell, secretary of the Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development.

"Northern Ireland is very strong in the software, financial services and IT sectors, and ... the life and health sciences areas," said Harry Grill, a partner in the Boston office of law firm Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Preston Gates Ellis LLP, who hosted a reception for the Northern Irish firms and Bay State officials on April 3.

The Northern Irish companies were part of a trade mission organized by Invest Northern Ireland, the economic development agency for the country, which has its U.S. headquarters in Boston. Eight of the companies were in the software, multimedia, and life sciences sectors ­­-- and some want to expand to the Boston area.

SmartMed Systems Ltd., for example, has weighed a move of its headquarters from Belfast to Boston, Martin Bradley, managing director of the medical software firm, has told Mass High Tech. The company, which is developing software for mobile phones to enable patients to transfer their medical diagnostic data to doctors, has visited Boston over the past year in addition to participating in the recent tour and plans to keep managers and sales workers here while research and development remains in Belfast.

With a presence here already, Randox has landed deals to supply its test chips used in life sciences research to the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, said Mathur. He said the company also supplies chemical test materials to Franciscan Hospital for Children in Boston.