Pivotal moment (From York Press)

Pivotal moment

10:21am Saturday 14th March 2009 in Search

NEW jobs are to be generated in York following an American takeover of a Clifton Moor-based laboratory – and following the completion of new city centre offices.

ACM-Pivotal, formerly Pivotal Laboratories, a £6 million turnover organisation whose laboratory provides clinical trials services to the pharmaceutical and biotech industries, has been acquired by its US counterpart, ACM Medical Laboratories of New York, for an undisclosed sum.

Now the labs at Aviator Court, where 38 people currently work, are set to take on at least eight new staff over the coming year.

News of the jobs boost comes only days after a keynote report by the think tank Centre For Cities stated that the science and technology sector was crucial to York’s economic survival and future prosperity.

Meanwhile, more than 50 new jobs are set to be created in first and second-storey offices being built in Bootham Row by the Skelwith Group.

Managing director Paul Ellis said the Aspire project would also create up to 20 new Sainsbury’s jobs at a new store on the ground floor.

He revealed that high-profile businesses which wanted to locate in York were interested in moving to the offices. He said: “York is very much open for business and we are actively looking for other sites to develop in the city.”

The ACM laboratories are involved in fighting a range of human diseases from cancer to Alzheimer’s. Growth of the company has been unrelenting for the past four years since a management buy-out led by managing director Jerry Boxall. Then came York’s alliance with ACM Medical Laboratories in Rochester, New York State, to extend its global capabilities and it has been operating as ACM-Pivotal for the past three years.

The new deal formalises the acquisition of the European side of the business by ACM Medical Laboratories, securing the long- term future of the company in York and ensuring that it literally goes global by name and by nature.

The new organisation has been re-branded as ACM Global Central Laboratory, offering its services in more than 60 countries world-wide and performing more than 12 million tests a year spanning all medical disciplines, including pathology, microbiology, flow cytometry and pharmacogenomics.

Mr Boxall said: “In just ten years we’ve taken Pivotal Laboratories from a small start-up to a well-respected international organisation and the deal is great news for the York economy in a particularly difficult time.”

Meanwhile, Richard Wilsdon has told how Britcab, a business launched last September by him and his father, which hires and sells high-quality portable buildings, was proving a big success.

“We have had a really positive start, and have been keeping really busy, even in these times, and have recently opened a new office in Boroughbridge Road,” he said.

“We hope to expand over the next few years.”