A Belfast medical technology firm is creating 32 new high-quality jobs amid a £3.6m expansion.
PathXL – which began as a spin-off project from Queen’s University – is adding the new positions across a range of areas, including software development, support and project management.
Salaries for the new posts will range from £30,000 to £60,000 and will be put in place over the next three years.
The company specialises in digital pathology – helping to speed up diagnosis – and is expanding in order to grow sales of its tumour detection software outside the UK and Ireland.
PathXL is based at the Northern Ireland Science Park, and one of many technology-based success stories here.
Chief executive Des Speed said the company’s aim was “to become world famous for contributing something really meaningful to the field of digital pathology”.
“This investment will help us to further develop the new TissueMark automated tumour detection, analysis and identification solution and broaden the exposure of, and interest in, our digital pathology solution concepts,” he said.
Invest NI is providing £360,000 towards the company’s expansion.
Alastair Hamilton, economic development agency’s chief executive, said the news “reinforces the message that Northern Ireland is an attractive and cost-effective location for knowledge-based business”.
“PathXL’s lucrative technology has a multitude of potential applications across the life, health and biological sectors. This investment in market development and workforce will give PathXL the scope to service an expanding market.”
Aside from its main workforce, PathXL also boasts the talents of the scientist who headed up the project which cloned Dolly the sheep.
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Professor Simon Best – who joined the board in 2013 – headed the Scottish university centre which produced the animal, the first mammal to come from an adult cell, in 1996.
The jobs announcement comes just a day after Northern Ireland’s leading medical testing firm, Randox, revealed a massive £161m expansion – resulting in 540 new posts being created.
The company is turning Massereene Army barracks into a diagnostics manufacturing centre.
View this and more articles on the Belfast Telegraph.
Caption: Invest NI is providing £360,000 towards the company’s expansion