An American biotechnology giant which boasts sales of £2 billion a year is considering expanding its presence in Scotland, bringing a jobs boom.

Life Technologies employs 500 staff at Inchinnan, near Glasgow Airport, but the firm is now reported to be looking at the area for a new factory which could be worth as much as £20 million.

The California-based firm, which is involved in DNA testing as well as the manufacture of cell culture for the pharmaceuticals industry, is expanding into the development of personalised medicines based on genetic analysis.

However, it is understood Scotland is up against an American factory and a site in China for the investment.

Chief executive Greg Lucier has visited the Renfrewshire plant to brief managers. "We have a skilled workforce that has been very committed and loyal through the years," he said. "We're considering substantial investments in the type of things we do here. But it is competitive, and we could do it in other sites we have.

"The labour costs wouldn't be as much of a consideration for us. What would be more important would be our ability to get the go ahead quickly, to make it work with our existing infrastructure, and the size of the potential demand for us in the European theatre."

Life Technologies produces the Personal Genome Machine (PGM) which translates chemically-encoded information on a gene into digital information on a semiconductor chip.

The technology was developed by Glasgow University PhD students Mark Milgrew and Paul Hammond and the university's Professor David Cumming.