A Buckinghamshire producer of medical devices and equipment is bringing its manufacturing operations back to the UK in a move that will lead to the doubling of its workforce.
Family company Mediplus is setting up a manufacturing operation where it will make many of its own products at its base in High Wycombe, after obtaining finance through NatWest and Lombard Business Finance.
The company, which currently employs 30 people, focuses on the research, development, manufacture and marketing of medical devices for sectors including urology, gynaecology, anaesthetics, gastroenterology and general surgery.
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Managing director Emma Gray, whose father Bob Urie set up the company almost 30 years ago, said: “Regulations are increasingly expecting manufacturers to have more control of the processes carried out by sub-contractors. That’s one of the reasons we’ve decided to set up our own manufacturing in-house. It will also mean we have more quality control.
“We are going to be recruiting up to 25 new posts, so it is great for local industry. We are re-shoring, as this move will see us bring a lot of our manufacturing back to the UK. At the moment it is currently being done in France and North Africa. So we are helping UK industry as a whole as well as the local area.”
The £500,000 project will see Mediplus taking on the lease of the building next door to its headquarters at Cressex Business Park, and creating a clean room which will allow the company to produce products in a controlled environment.
The firm has borrowed around £325,000 from NatWest and Lombard Business Finance, the asset finance arm of NatWest’s parent company RBS, including a loan under the Government’s Funding for Lending Scheme.
Mediplus, which last year won the Queen’s Award for Enterprise, will still outsource some of its production work to sub-contractors, but Gray hopes that their own manufacturing operation will start in June, with some of the products made on-site to be exported.
NatWest relationship director Nick Jones, who helped provide the funding needed to launch the manufacturing arm, said Mediplus is a great example of UK manufacturing succeeding by adding value to its output.
“Mediplus is a great example of how UK manufacturing is succeeding through added value manufacturing of niche products in highly focussed markets. Combine this with exceptionally strong export performance and you have a recipe for success,” he said.
“We have a dedicated manufacturing team at NatWest and we were delighted to help Emma and her team with this project, which supports the local as well as UK-wide economic recovery.”
