The Oxoid Group

Oxoid (part of Thermo Fisher Scientific) is one of the world's leading manufacturers and distributors of microbiological culture media and other diagnostic products. The corporate headquarters in Basingstoke, Hampshire is the main production and administrative site, supported by a network of wholly owned sales and distribution companies in Europe, North and South America and Australia. Many other countries are supplied through specialist distributors. The Oxoid range of products is used in clinical and industrial laboratories to isolate and identify the bacteria or other organisms causing disease or spoilage.

People

A key feature in the success of Oxoid over its long history has been the skill and knowledge of its staff. Emphasis is placed on the recruitment and retention of experienced scientists with a background in Microbiology for Sales and Marketing jobs as well as in the laboratory based R & D and Quality departments. Professionally qualified staff are also essential to the operation and as is constant improvement of our Manufacturing, Engineering, Accounting and Information Systems departments. Staff is encouraged to obtain formal qualifications or continue to develop their vocational and managerial skills. In total the Oxoid Group employs c.970 staff in 17 countries. In the UK there are around 620 people, mainly based in Basingstoke, but also within its subsidiary sites in Perth, Scotland (G&M Procter), Dartford (Remel Europe) and Oxoid (Ely) Ltd.

Production Facilities

The Basingstoke factory is responsible for the manufacture of Peptones (key ingredients in culture media made by enzymatic or acid hydrolysis of proteins), Dehydrated Culture Media, Antimicrobial Susceptibility Tests (used to decide which antibiotics will provide an effective treatment for a patient with a microbial infection) and a range of other microbiological and immunological tests and products. This necessitates the use of a wide range of production techniques and equipment capable of handling tonne quantities of peptone down to micrograms of antibody. Specialist equipment includes freeze driers, sterile filling lines and clean rooms, vacuum ovens, evaporators and spray driers.

A large scale and ongoing investment in the integration of the Supply Chain using the SAP enterprise resource planning system is being used, together with the training and development of staff, to achieve world class manufacturing capabilities.

Oxoid is a major supplier of ready prepared media for the health, food and pharmaceutical markets and has its own production facilities in Perth, Scotland; Wesel, Germany; Ottawa, Canada; and, as a result of an acquisition in September 2003, in Adelaide, Australia. These units contain sophisticated preparators and pouring lines in carefully controlled environments which ensure consistent products are made to international standards. Investment continued with the completion of our new factory in Perth, which began production in May 2004.

Quality

A rigorous Quality Assurance and Quality Control system ensures that customers receive products meeting the technical specifications and regulatory standards required. This is backed up by the ISO 9000 registration held by Oxoid since 1990 and additional registration to ISO 13485 for medical devices since 2004.

Product Development

Although many traditional culture media have been in use for a considerable time and remain an important part of the range, Oxoid continues to introduce new products in order to improve and speed up the process of isolating organisms from clinical, food or other sources. Changes in eating habits, food production methods and to the environment have led to the increased importance of such organisms as Listeria, E.coli O157, Salmonella and Legionella. Oxoid products developed to detect these organisms are an important part of public health.

Products launched recently include a range of chromogenic media for food pathogens; Oxoid Aura Image - an automated zone reader for susceptibility testing of clinical specimens; O.B.I.S. - a range of biochemical identification systems. Oxoid is also the distributor in Europe and Australia for the BAX system of PCR assays for microbial screening of food samples.