RE: RNS11 Feb 2021 07:24
Omega (AIM: ODX), the medical diagnostics company focused on CD4, infectious diseases and food intolerance testing, announces that it has agreed a contract with the Department of Health and Social Care ("DHSC") to provide manufacturing capacity for COVID-19 lateral flow antigen tests, as part of the UK Government's well-publicised target of producing two million lateral flow tests per day.
The intention is that as soon as the DHSC has access to a test that has successfully passed a performance evaluation, the test will be licensed for Omega to manufacture. As part of the contract, DHSC will loan a number of key pieces of manufacturing equipment.
This will facilitate the necessary expansion in production capability in Omega's Alva-based facility, to ensure the tests are made available as soon as possible.
The Company anticipates that the above actions will provide the Company with capacity to produce approximately 2 million tests per week by the end of April, when combining the Government-loaned equipment with its own manufacturing equipment. Omega expects that this capacity will be sufficient to meet the expected demand for lateral flow COVID-19 antigen tests, with enough remaining capacity to be used for VISITECT® CD4 or COVID-19 antibody tests according to demand.