Turner Pope Investments7 Aug 2020 18:02
Avacta Group plc
Avacta has announced its appointment of BBI Solutions, part of BBI Group (‘BBI’),
to manufacture the saliva-based rapid SARS-CoV-2 antigen test that is being
developed with its partner, Cytiva (formerly part of GE Healthcare Life Sciences).
This follows news from 22 April 2020 , that the partnership had progressed rapidly
with several highly specific Affimer®
reagents having already been successfully
generated. Anticipating very high demand for the test, BBI has now been selected
as a preferred manufacturing partner, while Avacta also continues discussions
with other high volume producers with a view to ensuring access to additional
capacity that may be needed to address global needs both now and in the future.
Developing a potential ‘game changing’ product
Simplicity, scale and early detection are all critical factors that have to be
considered by users seeking rapid testing and diagnostics as a positive step
towards controlling the current global health crisis. Improvements in ease of use
created through the Avacta-Cytiva partnership, which offer rapid, reliable testing
while eliminating the invasive nasopharyngeal swab protocol without
compromising performance, has potential to become a ‘game changer’ in the next
phase of the global pandemic response.
Realistically, the offer of mass testing with low cost disposable tests, whilst also
eliminating the expense/complexity of extraction through provision of a less
invasive sample collection process, is most likely to open testing access to wider
global communities. Indeed, given that most government agencies/health
practitioners consider frequent testing of a large percentage of the population to be
the best path forward, and critical for getting the global economy back to work, the
near and longer-term market opportunity presented is clearly very large indeed.
Appointing the ideal manufacturer
BBI Solutions is a leading global developer and manufacturer of raw materials and
finished test products for the in-vitro diagnostics market, with manufacturing sites
in five different countries, spanning four continents. The manufacturing
agreement between Avacta and BBI comprises the accelerated development and
validation of a scaled-up manufacturing process that has the potential to ramp up
to a production capacity of millions of tests per month. Avacta, Cytiva and BBI are
now undertaking a technology transfer that covers the prototype along with the
related manufacturing procedures for the saliva-based test.
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