RE: Innova to start manufacturing in Wales25 May 2021 08:21
The UK, which is Innova’s biggest market for lateral flow devices, has spent more than £100m transporting these and other tests from China, according to publicly available contracts.
“We were ahead of the competition in terms of developing these products but also scaling at mass,” Elliott said, noting that Pasaca Capital invested tens of millions in the early months of the pandemic, followed by hundreds of millions in the second half of 2020.
The company is ramping up production of its tests worldwide and aims to reach 50m tests a day by the end of the year.
Elliott, who is also president and senior partner of Pasaca Capital, told the FT he expected demand for lateral flow tests to remain high for the next three to four years. “When you look at it, the more we travel the more mixing of variants there will be,” he said.
However, Innova’s tests have prompted questions in the UK over their accuracy and value. At the height of the pandemic, several studies found that they identified between 40 and 70 per cent of the cases of active infection found by the gold-standard PCR test.
“There’s a lack of understanding of what lateral flow testing is vs a PCR test,” Elliott said. “PCR is a test to determine if you’re infected, whereas an LFD [lateral flow device] tells you if you’re infectious.”
Hundreds of UK-based diagnostics companies have been vying for government contracts, and a slice of the £37bn that has been committed to the Test and Trace programme. But to date, only one — Derby-based SureScreen — has been able to supply tests in the UK.
The Department of Health and Social Care said the UK had “built the largest testing infrastructure in Europe through partnerships across industry, academia, local government and others.
“The UK is now established as a testing and diagnostics powerhouse, with over 168.4m tests conducted. Collaboration continues to be a priority and we are hugely grateful to all the manufacturers and suppliers who have offered their assistance in the production of Covid-19 tests.”
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