Protected by high-level security, scores of companies are making breakthroughs which change lives around the world at Kent Science Park.

Chris Price was given special access to the high-tech facility.

A knock on the door of a lab at Kent Science Park does not reveal the type of technician typically expected.

The man who invites us in to the abode of pesticide monitoring firm QTS Analytical is wearing a traditional white coat over Bermuda shorts and sandals.

He introduces himself as Chris Murr, the manager, and shows me upstairs to a room filled with test tubes, computers and white machines that look like giant 1980s hi-fis. The place looks like a lab does in films.

“There is much better access and more reliable facilities here,” he said. “There is even better broadband.”

His firm is one of more than 60 operating at the 55-acre site on the edge of Sittingbourne. Among them are life science companies, drug research organisations and several classified government enterprises, which management cannot reveal any details about.

“We have to be fairly discreet,” said site director James Speck. Walking around the facilities, accessed after driving through a security checkpoint, he points out a 40,000 sqft unit being built for a drug company, which he cannot tell us about.

“We have to protect intellectual property and having the added element of security helps attract the right kind of client,” he said.

Many people still associate the location with Shell, who acquired it as a research facility in 1945, employing 800 people at one stage.

In 1995, the company decided to focus on its core business and vacated the site at the cost of several hundred jobs.

It was then acquired by LaSalle Investment Management in 2002. Today, 1,370 people are employed there.

Among them is Lithuanian-born but American-raised Giedre Brandao, who runs disease screening company AbBaltis Ltd.

Her business is one which James believes has a “massive potential for growth”. Having begun her company in the spare corner of her bedroom, Giedre moved to a small lab on the site in 2011.

Today, she has two labs and two offices, employs five people and is ready to take on more staff as she builds raw materials for clinical testing.

Her work is hugely complicated but she enthusiastically explains in great detail what her company tries to achieve, showing off various apparatus and frozen samples.

Their product lowers the costs of testing for rare diseases in hospitals and enables them to screen multiple blood samples quickly in far flung reaches of the globe.

She said: “Not too many companies were interested in the science and complexity of this. Big companies are run by people more interested in business than science.

“I noticed there was a big need for raw materials to test for these rare diseases and no one was interested in that.”

The Lithuanian, who speaks seven languages, has lived in Sittingbourne for five years and is quick to sing the praises of her company’s base of operations.

She said: “This is a supportive environment for us. There are lots of other small companies so we network and learn from others’ success.

“When we were looking to expand, Kent Science Park were able to support us through our growth.

“They listen to what we need and step out of their comfort zone to give us the facilities we require.”

The park is home to many different types of company. Only 60% are actually in the science and technology sector.

Much of the key to why these firms like Kent Science Park is actually down to its former owners.

“One of the great assets of the site is what it used to do before we worked in these buildings,” said Robert Patten, managing director of Plantworks.

The company has been based there for 10 years, producing and supplying botanically active gardening products, which it harvests in rows of greenhouses that have been at the facility for decades.

“They are bespoke for what we do,” he said. “Shell used to work on plant control agents and the greenhouses and laboratories they used are exactly what we need. It is unusual for a science park to have all that.

“The infrastructure is good and the security is what we need. It is a nice place to work.”

James added: “The buildings date to the 1950s, which in normal circumstances is unlettable but they are all tailored to scientific businesses needs.”

All kinds of people work and network at the park. Professor Raymond Coker was professor of food safety at University of Greenwich in Chatham before he set up his company ToxiMet.

He invented the ToxiQuant machine, which scans for toxins in food, measuring in parts per billion.

He said: “There is a synergy between us and other companies here. We try to assist each other as much as possible.

“Also when an opportunity appears, the park bring it to my attention.”

Plantworks’ Robert added: “People say ‘why does Sittingbourne need a science park?’ but there is a nice diversity of companies on site which allow the whole community to be serviced.

“We are not just PhD types. There are a whole range of people on site.

“I do believe it is a real asset for Kent. It doesn’t always get the recognition it should do.”