Bioatriki, the large private Greek lab and diagnostics group, plans to spend €10m-€12m building a facility in London aimed at the private healthcare sector in 2010. Bioatriki owner and founder Evangelous Spanos said: “London lacks a really good private lab and imaging centre. We will aim to develop a 1,000-1,500 square metre facility 1-2 miles from Harley Street which can offer 24 hour turnaround on tests.” Healthcare Europa estimates the UK private market including hospital outsourcing at £300m (EUR330m).

Bioatriki is a serious player. Spanos says that in 2009 sales came to €132m with pre-tax profits at €30m. The company regularly wins European awards for its sophisticated state of the art labs and it dominates the Greek imaging and lab market.

Analysts say that the company was talking about expanding into the Balkans a year ago, but Spanos says he is now much more interested in London. “It has 12m people and many of them have private healthcare insurance. Besides, sterling is currently weak so setting up there will not be that expensive.”

Spanos denies rumours that he planned to sell the business at one stage, but says his three private hospitals in Athens lost €3m-€3.5m in 2009. “I am considering converting them to labs. Certainly 2010 will be very hard in Greece as we went into the recession late and the government has very high debts. It will be a very tough year.”