Company That Supplied Hundreds of Millions of Pounds of Unusable COVID Tests Saw Profits Skyrocket to £178 Million After Lobbying Conservative Peer for Contract

A company that was placed on the ‘VIP’ priority route for COVID contracts under the last Conservative Government, saw their profits soar to £178 million after successfully lobbying a senior Conservative peer to help them secure a contract for hundreds of millions of pounds worth of coronavirus tests that were later deemed mostly unusable.

Financial records reveal that Southampton based company Primer Design Ltd, owned by French parent company Novacyt, had a bumper year during the first year of COVID. Its turnover in 2019 was £5.5 million, but following the award of two huge VIP contracts from the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) in 2020, this ballooned to £273 million of which £178 million was declared as profit . Two of the firms’ directors received bonuses of £8.5 million and £3 million.

Accounts filed by Primer Design brag that sales “grew by over 4,800%” driven “principally” by its UK Government contracts.

Primer Design were awarded its first £63 million contract by the DHSC in April 2020, this was followed by a £406 million deal in September 2020 — a two year contract to supply PCR COVID tests. 

According to analysis by Private Eye, Primer Design recorded a profit margin of 65.3% during the first COVID period, which led to them occupying the top spot in its league table of profitable pandemic contract winners.

Private Eye, noted that Primer Design’s profit margins were “double the world’s most profitable company and creator of the most in demand “intellectual property”, Apple, and three times that achieved by Google”.

The contracts ended in disaster, after the DHSC deemed the testing kits supplied by Primer Design to be “unfit for public use” and lacking the “robustness” required. The majority of the kits were never used — resulting in the UK Government attempting to seek a £145 million refund from Primer Design and its parent company, Novacyt, via the UK courts.

Both firms rejected the claims made by the DHSC and tried to counter sue the Government, eventually reaching an out of court settlement in June last year. 

Questions still remained about how the firm was able to secure its place on the VIP lane. However, documents released to Byline Times now shed new light on this matter.

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Novacyt’s cozy relationship with Lord Bethell.

Lord Bethell held three meetings with executives from Novacyt on 4 April 2020 and 6 April 2020 to discuss the firm’s COVID-19 testing capabilities — meetings that the Conservative Peer failed to declare until June 2021, some 14 months later, as first reported by Byline Times.

However, emails disclosed to Byline Times via the Freedom of Information Act show that former Health Minister, Lord Bethell, was in regular correspondence with Novacyt and Primer Design in the days before the company landed its first VIP lane contract in April 2020.

Here’s what the emails reveal:

• Following a telephone meeting between Lord Bethell and Novacyt, the firm emailed Lord Bethell attaching a memo containing a series of requests where “the Government can help Novacyt” as it begins “scaling up of the COVID-19 testing requirements”. The four-page document seeks help on a broad range of issues including “financial support” from the DHSC as well as help with logistics. The firm also suggested the Government could provide “an immediate injection of £5million”. 

• The informal email concluded with Novacyt officials suggesting to Bethell that “now it’s time to light the BBQ and grab an hour of sunshine”. The email received a response within half an hour and a follow up call was organised for the following day.

• Lord Bethell thanked Novacyt for the “very helpful note” before looping in another Conservative Peer, Lord Andrew Fledman, to the email chain. Lord Feldman was operating as an advisor to health ministers during this time and controversially helped refer numerous companies onto the VIP lane.

• The firm also requested Lord Bethell’s office issue a letter to Novcacyt to acknowledge “the efforts” of Novacyt and Primer Design staff. Bethell obliged on the same day with a handwritten note embellished with the House of Lords letterhead, reading: “On behalf of the DHSC, I want to thank everyone at Novacyt for the remarkable contribution you are making in the fight against Coronavirus. It is recognised at the highest levels. And massively appreciated. Your ever, Lord Bethell.”

• Novacyt officials lobbied Lord Bethell directly via email again on 15 April 2020 and 20 April 2020 and in the subsequent months regarding products it could offer the DHSC, with Bethell noting in response that he had “played this into our recently upgraded system and will get back to you”.

Novacyt’s sustained lobbying efforts paid off, and on 26 April 2020 the company was awarded it’s first, £63 million contract from the DHSC, on the same day company executives emailed Lord Bethell and officials in the Cabinet Office thanking them for “your confidence and support”. Bethell replied the following morning claiming “this is truly great news”.

Primer Design Ltd and the DHSC were both contacted for comment.