By Ashley Young-
A U.S firm is scheduled to provide the UK with 100,000 coronavirus tests per day by the end of the month, to help the British government hit its target.
Mark Stevenson, the chief operating officer at Thermo Fisher Scientific, based in Waltham, Massachusetts, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the target was possible. “We began mobilising actually straight away after we learned about the Covid-19 outbreak and we designed the kit to identify the virus’s unique genetic code,” he said.
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“Then we worked in a way to test that, validate that in patients. And then we began to scale up our manufacturing to meet demand. We agreed with the UK that we would supply to meet their demand of more than 100,000 tests per day.”
The company will initially produce antigen tests, which determine whether someone currently has the virus, rather than antibody tests that reveal if someone has previously had it and may, therefore, be immune.
Tests have been considered widely crucial to the management of the coronavirus outbreak after shortages of the chemical reagents needed were highlighted as a problem. Health Secretary Matt Hancock has expressed an importance for at least 100,000 tests a day to be conducted daily as part of the direction towards ending the current lockdown.
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Stevenson said Thermo Fisher Scientific had all the elements required to produce tests and it was not affected by any global shortage of reagents. “We manufacture the whole sophisticated supply chain so the tests, the reagents, the instruments,” he said.
“This is actually our expertise, so we’re bringing both the reagents, the chemicals and also our scientific expertise to help the UK. The challenge has really been making sure we have the lab capacity built up.
“And so that’s what the UK government has been building out, these three new centres and hubs. But we have the capacity to supply those labs with the necessary reagents, and tests for those kits.”
Stevenson said the kits were currently produced outside the UK, but the firm had agreed to use its UK bases to manufacture them for local supply. “Here in the UK we have about 5,000 employees and about 26 sites, so we already have a very large presence,” he said.
He said Amazon is involved in moving the test kits from the firm’s bases to UK testing centres, he said. Tests are carried out at these centres and then sent to one of three major hubs that have been set up for processing.
Boris Johnson has previously indicated that people who have recovered from the virus will be thought to be largely immune and capable of returning to work.
“We are looking at how to develop an antibody test, as you know the science is quite hard there,” said Stevenson. “But we do think over time there will be good antibodies available and that will be part of the expansion beyond what we’re doing at the moment.”
Some Nhs bosses are sceptical that the 100,000 tests target is achievable in the time that Matt Hancock wants it.
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