Scottish Enterprises admit £35m gamble on IMI

Jack Perry, chief executive of
Scottish
Enterprise (SE), has admitted £35m of taxpayers’ money have been gambled on
US healthcare company Inverness Medical Innovations (IMI) which will be unable
to achieve the agency’s expectations.

After three years, Stirling Medical, IMI’s project in Scotland, has only 50
staff on its books compared to a projected 500 and has made 37 redundancies this
year, forcing it to turn down an offer of another £14.5m from SE because it
could not guarantee meeting stiff job targets, Scotland on Sunday reports.

The company is still months from bringing its product, a diagnostic kit for
heart patients, to market and according to sources, at a cost of £700,000 a job,
the project has been an expensive gamble.

Perry accepted the project had been a risk but refused to discuss details of
the negotiations. He said due diligence had been done: ‘Was it ambitious? Yes.
Did it bear risk? Absolutely. Will it realise what we hoped? Probably not.’

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