RNS22 May 2020 15:49
HOW much news that might be seen this month
On 15 April 2020, Novacyt announced plans to increase manufacturing capacity to approximately eight million tests per month. The Company is on track with this scale-up and expects to achieve at least this level of output during June 2020
The Company continues to increase its sales level into the US market and is evaluating potential options to further expand its presence in this important market.
The development of a new "direct-to-PCR" extraction method, Exsig™ Free, used prior to running the Company's COVID-19 test, will therefore remove the need for scarce reagents used with magnetic beads and significantly reduces the number of extraction steps, allowing faster cycle times, higher throughputs and cost savings. The Directors believe this innovation should facilitate an increase in testing capacity for COVID-19, removing a current bottleneck in sample processing for laboratories. Development is progressing well and Novacyt is on track to launch this new extraction technology in May 2020.
Sales
As of 28 April 2020, Primerdesign has sold, received orders for or has been contracted to deliver over £90 million (€103 million) of its COVID-19 test. This figure includes the contracted minimum amount of test orders from the recently signed supply agreement with the UK's Department of Health and Social Care and initial orders received to date from the collaboration with AstraZeneca, GSK and the University of Cambridge.