A Wiltshire manufacturer of medical devices has landed £1.45million in funding and is planning to use the money to scale up production of swabs used for Covid-19 testing.
Medical Wire & Equipment (MWE), which is based at Leafield Industrial Estate in Corsham, secured the finance through Barclays.
The company produces 100 million devices a year including virus transport swabs - a self-contained gel swab for aerobes and anaerobes - being used by the NHS.
MWE said the funding would be used to buy specialist machinery to increase production as well as boosting the firm’s working capital and foreign exchange capabilities.
The business, which was founded in 1952, also said it expected to recruit 30 new staff to its existing team of 90 to help meet the "unprecedented level of demand" for products.
Andrew Broggio, chief executive of MWE, said: “ Without Barclays help, we would not have been able to scale up production of our virus transport products to assist in the fight against Covid-19.
"The partnership with Barclays has put us on track to increase production eight-fold by September and repatriate manufacturing capability, therefore developing resilience in the UK medical device sector.”
John Squier, Barclays relationship director in Bath, added: “MWE is an impressive firm with leading medical technology that is currently in high demand both domestically and internationally.
I’m proud that Barclays has been able to support a local manufacturer with the necessary funding to accelerate their production of their vital testing equipment to support the NHS at what is a very challenging time for us all.”
