Cozart Biosciences won a contract from the Home Office in 2001 to supply the Cozart® RapiScan (a saliva-based system that can test for five different drugs and give results in minutes) for the purposes of the DIP scheme, at that point restricted to testing on charge. The contract was then worth £500,000.
In October 2005 the contract was extended through to April 2007, and expanded to allow for testing on arrest. ‘The Home Office anticipates that the number of tests performed, and therefore the number of Cozart cartridges used…will more than double – and perhaps even triple. In the six months up to November 2005, the DIP consumed 59,300 cartridges, so it is entirely possible that within a few years more than 300,000 a year will be being used. The list price of each cartridge is approximately £8, while an electronic reader sells for £2,000, which suggests that this contract alone could deliver well over £2m a year of ongoing revenue’.
Money Week, 7 December 2006. |