A Norwich life sciences company is investing around �500,000 in new machinery to create a new drug testing laboratory as part of an expansion of the business.

Anglia DNA, which specialises in paternity testing services, including an off-the-shelf kit, said the new facility would be capable of carrying out drug testing analysis for clients including lawyers, clinics, and even companies and public bodies looking to carry out workplace drug testing on staff.

Managing director Thomas Haizel said it had been a good year for the firm, which is based at the John Innes Centre, in the Norwich Research Park.

A deal struck last year with Boots to supply paternity testing kits in nearly 400 stores across the country had boosted sales by 30pc.

He said talks were also ongoing with another UK high street pharmacy to stock the kits, and negotiations are also under way with two major supermarket chains.

Mr Haizel said the firm was also hoping to expand into other English-speaking countries, starting with Ireland.

'It's been very good,' he said. 'We've sold about 6,000 kits already to Boots and we are talking to try to get the kits into another high street chemist around Easter time.

'We want to go to English speaking countries and we are talking to the Irish equivalent of Boots,' he added. 'We calculate that our sales have gone up by about 30pc since the Boots deal.'

Turnover was �1.2m last year and this is forecast to rise to �1.7m, while the Boots deal had also helped to take staff numbers up to 25, with two more lab staff recently taken on.

'About 25pc of last year's revenue came from the paternity testing kits. We are planning to bring other products in.'

Mr Haizel said the expansion into drug testing was a direct consequence of the success of the paternity testing service the company offered and the reputation it had built up.

Two new laboratories, which are due to be up and running by May, would be able to test for cannabis, cocaine, heroin, and ecstasy using urine, blood samples, hair and saliva.

'We are investing �500,000 on new machinery for new drug testing laboratories,' he said. 'It's going to create three new jobs and we are hoping that in five years time we will have five people doing the drug testing.

'We've done paternity testing so well that lawyers were coming to us and asking if we had drug testing – we had about 300 people in our database requesting it and we realised there was a big gap in the market.

'We think we can capitalise on our reputation with paternity testing. We are known for doing things very well, and we can cross-sell to the same group of solicitors.

'Once we have got that up and running, we can look to workplace drug testing. We saw the market was bigger than we anticipated and we are going for it.'

He said news that the Norwich Research Park is to get �23m of government funds will also benefit the business.

'We have gone through our difficult period – we are established and now in a good place,' he said.

'We are really growing rapidly now. We've got quite a lot of projects on-going.

'For us there will be more space to expand when we need to and I can see us taking another lab maybe next year.

'We've got very big plans and a bright future – in about 10 years time we will take the whole building!'