(Sharecast News) - Omega Diagnostics shares received a boost on Wednesday as on news the UK government had placed an initial order for one million of its Covid-19 rapid tests.
The company is part of the UK Rapid Test Consortium, which on Tuesday announced the order for the antibody tests. The order is part of government plans to roll-out Covid-19 surveillance studies to help build a picture of how the virus had spread across the country.
The test uses a small drop of blood from a finger-prick and showed results in 20 minutes, without the need for a patient sample to be sent to a laboratory, Omega said in a statement.
"Omega expects to manufacture approximately 175,000 of these first one million tests but over the term of this supply agreement, Omega will manufacture not less than 25% of the demand from total orders placed, either from the UK government or, where allowed, third party customers," it added.
Omega chief executive Colin King said: "I am delighted that the UK-RTC has now received its first contract from the UK Government for our COVID-19 lateral flow antibody test."
"We believe that the AbC-19 Rapid test has the immediate opportunity to allow the UK to build a swift and clear picture of how the virus has spread throughout the population. It also has the potential to be deployed in conjunction with vaccine candidates to help assess initial immune responses."
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