Randox is an international health and toxicology company in the in vitro diagnostics industry headquartered in the UK, and owned by Peter FitzGerald. The company develops diagnostic solutions for hospitals, clinical, research and molecular labs, food testing, forensic toxicology, veterinary labs and life sciences. It develops, manufactures and markets reagents and equipment for laboratory medicine, with a distribution network of 145 countries. Randox is the biggest polymerase chain reaction testing provider in the UK and Ireland. Randox received three contracts by the Department of Health and Social Care without having to compete for a tender. In 2014 Randox acquired a laboratory in Manchester from Trimega Laboratories which had gone into administration. In February 2017, two Randox employees were arrested on suspicion of perverting the course of justice amid allegations of data tampering within Randox Testing Services, used by many Police Forces in England and Wales for forensic toxicology. As of November 2017, around 50 criminal prosecutions for driving offences had been dropped in what BBC home affairs correspondent, Danny Shaw, described as "the biggest forensic science scandal in the UK for decades". Police forces have begun reviewing over 10, 000 criminal cases that may be affected by the alleged data manipulation, including sexual and violent crimes. In March 2019 it was reported that former cabinet minister and Conservative MP Owen Paterson, who was a consultant to Randox, had helped to lobby the government to seek contracts for them. This violated rules stating that an MP may not lobby on behalf of a paying client. Paterson communicated with the Food Standards Agency three times in relation to testing for antibiotics in milk and the Department for International Development four times in relation to blood testing.
