By Samuel Indyk
Investing.com – Medical diagnostics company Omega Diagnostics has today launched its VISITECT Covid-19 antigen test, a rapid test for the detection of active Covid-19 infections.
The launch of the product is in the final stage in the commercial rollout, after the product received CE marking last month.
The lateral flow test can give a visual read out in 10 minutes and can be used with throat and nasal swabs or just nasal only.
Accuracy
As previously announced by the firm, the test has a sensitivity of 98.4% on samples with a cycle threshold of
DHSC Contract Update
Omega has also provided an update on its Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) contract where it will provide manufacturing capacity for licensed tests.
The AIM-listed company is still waiting for a decision from the DHSC on which tests have passed their performance evaluations and once a suitable test is approved, the DHSC will then license that test for Omega to manufacture. The value of the contract, announced in March, is up to £374mln.
“I am pleased to say that we are now producing a wide range of our own tests from our Alva site and we look forward to being notified which test we will produce under the UK Government contract, which will then see us move to production of up to two million tests a week,” said Omega Diagnostics (LON:ODX) CEO Colin King.
“In the meantime, there is much ongoing activity; not only are we producing our own tests, but we are also producing AbC-19 Rapid tests for the UK-RTC in anticipation of forthcoming orders as well as providing additional cassetting and pouching services to the UK Government for other COVID-19 antigen lateral flow tests.”
At 09:30BST, shares in Omega Diagnostics were trading lower by 2.2% at 71.92 pence per share.