EQUIPMENT from a Bude pharmaceutical firm, which went into administration last September, is being auctioned off online.

The administrators of Exelgen, formerly Tripos Discovery Research (TDR), which received more than £6 million of taxpayers' money to set up and stay in the Westcountry, are offering everything, even desks and chairs, on an eBay-like website to pay creditors.

The Exelgen site was sold back and leased from the South West Regional Develop­ment Agency for £2.6 million in 2007 when the company first got into financial difficulty, and also saw its debts to the taxpayer wiped. But it was not enough to stop if failing last year.

Ross Connock, administrator for Pricewaterhouse­Coopers, confirmed the RDA were among creditors who will receive money from the proceeds of the sale but said until it was

finished he could not say how much the body would receive.

He said there had been a delay in getting to this point as it had taken time to determine ownership of the equipment.

There are 333 lots for sale, with the top price being £20,000 for a 'Purification System With Mass Spectrometer."

Exelgen spent £16 million of its own money creating a research laboratory in Bude. At its peak it employed 150, but by the time TDR's parent company went into liquidation in May 2007, leading to its sale to fellow US firm Commonwealth Biotech­no­­logies Inc (CBI), it employed just 25.

Administrators laid off all but five staff when it failed in September after CBI withdrew support. Now just two people remain working for the firm in Bude — helping to

catalogue the equipment for sale.

A spokesman for SWRDA said it was still searching for a "suitable occupier" for the vacant building.