One of the Highlands' newest and most innovative companies, Alchemy Plus, has been awarded a major information technology services contract by Frontier Science (Scotland) Ltd.

Frontier Science is based in Kincraig, with nine employees, and is involved in various aspects in the management of international cancer trials. The statistical analysis of one of the recent international trials for Herceptin, in women with early stage breast cancer, was conducted by the company, in collaboration with colleagues in Boston.

Alchemy Plus, based in Dingwall, is making significant progress in its aim of positioning itself as one of Scotland's leading providers of IT support to business.

Eleanor McFadden, Managing Director of Frontier Science (Scotland) Ltd, said:

"The worldwide nature of our work in aspects of managing cancer trials makes it crucial that we have the best IT system. We couldn't function without the right system and support.

"Alchemy have won this contract by competitive tender and their support includes an upgrade of our overall IT capability. We're very pleased to be working with them."

Steve Chisholm, Chief Executive Officer of Alchemy Plus, said: "We're delighted to win an award from a growing Highland-based business with such a vital role to play on major health issues and an international dimension with links to research centres around the world, including Boston, Berne and Brussels.

"We have assessed their specific needs and designed for them a system to undertake larger analytical loads. They are being given a significantly increased level of processing power with full redundancy and backup protection.

“Our specially tailored software keeps a constant health check on their servers and automatically reconfigures the system if any system failure is detected. Maintaining continuity of our clients' operation is paramount."

Mr Chisholm added: "From a standing start in May we now have a growing forward workload and are adding three new staff to take us to 10 with more to follow for our three technical arms -- providing computer systems, computer management and software development.

"We're supplying customers from Glasgow to Moray as well as throughout the Highlands and Islands and we're very encouraged by the levels of repeat business already being generated. The Frontier Science (Scotland) Ltd award is an example of how we can deliver competitive but highly effective IT systems and support to service the most critical and demanding of client applications."

Alchemy Plus, he indicated, is researching new projects to further diversify and expand the business in 2007. "We see ourselves firmly in growth mode", said Mr Chisholm, "which is good news for Dingwall and for the Highland business sector as a whole."

Queries to:

Bill McAllister, McAllister Media

01463 236830/ 0772 077 2366

Steve Chisholm, Alchemy Plus

01349 865000