Nicotine-busting firm honoured

Firm makes active pharmaceutical ingredient for antismoking devices

A Northern Ireland company which helps smokers worldwide to kick the habit has been honoured for its innovation.

Nicobrand makes the essential chemical used in anti-smoking remedies.

It and four other Northern Ireland companies are celebrating after winning a Queen's Award for Enterprise.

Nicobrand, based in Coleraine in County Londonderry, is a subsidiary of the American firm Watson Pharmaceuticals.

It makes the active pharmaceutical ingredient for anti-smoking devices and supplies it to the makers of nicotine gum, nicotine lozenges and what are called transdermal patches.

The company's overseas earnings have increased from about £3m to £12m over the past three years and the numbers of employees have gone up by 50% to 35, most of them science graduates.

Managing Director Rex Humphrey is currently in Taiwan selling the company's products into new markets.

Recently we started selling into Hungary where we set up a distributor relationship with a well-established company in the east of Hungary, very close to the Ukraine Philip Orr UPU Industries

While he said he was delighted with the award, he was disappointed with what he described as "a lack of support" from the economic investment agency Invest Northern Ireland.

"I think Invest NI needs to get their act together and realise that we are in a very fast moving world and they need to be as flexible and as fast moving as the Northern Ireland industry they are supposed to be supporting," he said.

"They have a decision by committee, which in itself, though slow and cumbersome, quite often comes to good decisions.

"The problem seems to be that at client-executive level, they don't seem to have the quality of people who can make the decision to bring the right projects to the right committees in the right timeframe.

"Often, the committee doesn't even get the opportunity to make the decision. It is rejected at client-executive level."

Patios and driveways

Another of the Queen's Award winners was UPU Industries in Dromore, County Down, a family-owned company set up 26 years ago, which makes a wrapping for the baling of hay, straw and silage.

Managing director Philip Orr said: "Recently we started selling into Hungary where we set up a distributor relationship with a well-established company in the east of Hungary, very close to the Ukraine.

"We feel they are very well placed for parts of Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, Romania, Hungary and also Slovakia, where the market has started to take off for the types of products we manufacture."

There is a tremendous demand for decorative paving nowadays, probably boosted with the interest in the TV programmes that you see on almost every night David Henderson Tobermore Concrete

Tobermore Concrete, which sells paving products for patios and driveways, was also honoured.

It is another family-owned company based in Maghera in County Londonderry.

Managing director David Henderson said more than half of its products were exported into the Republic of Ireland.

"We have a very strong market in Dublin, Galway, Cork and all the major cities," he said.

"There is a tremendous demand for decorative paving nowadays, probably boosted with the interest in the TV programmes that you see on almost every night."

The other two award winners were the McAvoy Group in Dungannon, County Tyrone, which makes modular buildings, and Belfast company Andor Technology, which makes sophisticated camera equipment for high-tech companies in more than 40 countries.

Andor Technology makes sophisticated camera equipment

Enterprise Minister Barry Gardiner said it was immensely encouraging that the manufacturing companies had been recognised for their achievements in the global marketplace over the past three years.

"I am also impressed by the very broad range of business sectors of the award winners, covering scientific instruments; fast-track construction; building products; chemicals and farming supplies."

He added: "Andor Technology is an excellent example of a Northern Ireland-owned company that is prospering through R&D, investing 15% of turnover annually in new product development and achieving year-on-year growth of around 25% over the past three years."