Scotland's Covid-19 testing megalab plans have ground to a halt, the UK Government announced.
Details of the huge testing centre were released in November.
It was expected to boost the UK's Covid-19 testing capacity by 30,000 per day.
Scots were told it would open in early 2021.
But on Tuesday is was announced that construction work on the lab had to stop.
The move comes as Government officials work out if the facility will be needed long-term and the demand for it, should it be built.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokeswoman said: "Since the start of the pandemic, the UK has increased the capacity of our laboratories by more than tenfold, as well as setting up an entirely new nationwide network of lighthouse labs and partner laboratories to process Covid-19 swab samples.
"With the vaccine rollout under way across the UK, development of one of the planned very high throughput labs has been paused until the impact of the vaccine on the long-term demand for PCR testing can be assessed.
"Substantial testing capacity remains in place and this will not prevent anyone from getting a test."
