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New drug testing lab for UK

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Russell Langley 15 July 2004

The UK’s fight for drug-free sport has been boosted by the news that HFL Ltd has been awarded WADA-accreditation for the detection of drugs in blood and urine samples. UK Sport will now use HFL, along with the UK’s other accredited laboratory at King’s College London, to analyse samples from its testing programme.

The accreditation of HFL means the UK becomes one of only three countries in the world to have more than one WADA-accredited laboratory, the others being Spain and Germany. In total, there are 32 WADA-accredited laboratories in the world, an indication of the strict standards than need to be met to join this elite group.

"HFL achieving WADA accreditation is excellent news for UK Sport at a time when we are significantly increase the number of tests we carry out," said John Scott, UK Sport’s Acting Director of Drug-Free Sport. "Having two WADA-accredited laboratories shows the depth of scientific and technical expertise we have in the UK. This can only lead to a strengthening of our standing at the forefront of the global anti-doping stage."

HFL was set up in 1963 to provide drug-testing services to British horseracing and, more recently, the National Greyhound Racing Club. David Hall, Chief Executive of HFL, said: "This has been a very long process. We started out with this aim seven years ago, but now we can bring our unique skills to make a major contribution to the aim of fair competition in sport."

HFL will begin the analysis of samples within the next month, during a year in which UK Sport expects to conduct around 7,000 tests on sportsmen and women across more than 40 sports.

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