Trimega Laboratories Sponsors Family Law Awards 2011

LONDON, August 22, 2011 /PRNewswire/ --

Trimega Laboratories, the leading hair alcohol and drug testing company, is proud to announce that it will be the principal sponsor of the inaugural Family Law Awards. The awards will form part of the Family Law Conference, now in its 24^th year, which will take place on 18 October 2011 at the Hilton Hotel, Park Lane, London.  

Avi Lasarow, CEO of Trimega, said: "We are delighted to sponsor the Family Law Awards and recognise the huge efforts that the community makes in ensuring the right outcome for family legal cases.  Our own role is focused on providing additional evidence for child custody cases through hair sample analysis where there are questions about potential alcohol abuse and drug use by parents."

The Family Law Conference is designed to give family lawyers the information needed to stay on top of the latest developments in legislation, practice and procedure.  The conference will be hosted by barrister and broadcaster Clive Coleman.  The keynote speaker will be Baronness Hale of Richmond.

The eight awards for nomination are:

*  Family Law Solicitor of the Year

*  Family Law Barrister of the Year

*  Family Law Firm of the Year

*  Family Law Chambers of the Year

*  Most Innovative Family Lawyer of the Year

*  Most Outstanding Contribution to Family Law

*  Family Law ADR Practitioner of the Year

*  Family Law Readers Commentary Award

Further details of the awards are available at: http://www.familylawawards.com.

Notes to Editors

About Trimega Laboratories (http://www.trimegalabs.co.uk)

Established in London in 2005, Trimega Laboratories is well recognised for being a leader in the development of innovative techniques for testing for substances of abuse. Its core business is laboratory-based analysis of hair samples that provide accurate historical records of alcohol or drugs dependency over a one to 12 month period. In the UK, Trimega's core clients include: family law specialists, law courts, and social services.  

Trimega was the first to market with dual-marker hair alcohol testing (FAEE and EtG). Dual hair testing provides very accurate results: at its annual conference in March 2011, the Society of Hair Testing (SoHT) confirmed that dual testing on hair for alcohol misuse provides accuracy rates of over 94%, with less that 1% risk of a false positive, and 5.75% risk of a false negative.  The SoHT's consensus was based on analysis of Trimega's data set of approximately 2,000 dual hair testing samples, the largest of its kind in the world.

Other services offered by Trimega include: Roadside Testing for law enforcement, Hair Steroid Testing for athletes, and Hair Benzodiazepines Testing.

Trimega won the title of Best Use of Technology in the 2008 Barclays-sponsored Startups Awards, and has been on the shortlist for the National Business Awards three years running. Trimega is also one of 25 companies to represent the UK in the 2011 European Business Awards.

Trimega conducts its hair alcohol analysis in laboratories in Germany which are accredited with international standard ISO 17025 by DAkkS, the German issuing authority, equivalent to UKAS in the UK. The technology for hair-alcohol testing originated in Germany.

The UK Ministry of Justice does not require hair testing laboratories to be accredited. However, Trimega's UK laboratory in Manchester, which carries out drug tests, operates to ISO 17025 standards, and has applied for ISO 17025 accreditation from UKAS. Trimega's Manchester laboratory already has ISO 9001:2008 certification from Lloyd's Register Group, itself accredited by UKAS, for the 'provision of clinical collecting, testing, analysis and interpretation services for substances of abuse'. In addition, the Manchester laboratory is the only UK laboratory in the industry to have ISO 14001 certification from QMS International, the environmental management system standard for internal quality management. Trimega is an Investor in People.

Trimega was responsible for the creation of a Hair Strand Scientific Advisory Board. Its purpose is to analyse the fast growing database of information created from the 10,000 hair alcohol tests and 7,000 hair drug tests carried out on UK samples each year, of which Trimega is responsible for around 40%. The findings of the Board are shared with the Society of Hair Testing which will assist it in future decisions, particularly those relating to the setting of universal standards/guidelines.