Member Info for Unprecedented

Have a thought for our marketing team - which one do we pick:
- the quickest
- the most accurate
- the cheapest
- the most robust
- the easiest to manufacture
- the easiest to use
- the easiest to store

Thats what I have been thinking radia!

We also now know our test is very fast - that to me is new and very relevant

Agree - ‘ The super-fast results are also seen as transformative by some in the industry, with sources saying that the time has been brought down considerably over the past few months after experimentation with hundreds of different test strips’ - maybe Cytiva have been integral to this all along

Don’t you love it when a plan comes together!!!!

gkb - its just me trying to make sense of it all. But I am pretty convinced that Avacta (as well as other listed companies involved such as Abingdon) are having to walk an increasingly difficult tightrope between keeping the markets informed and adhering to the strict ndas around the UK test. Spare a thought for Al wanting to share all the great news and respond to all the criticism but being unable to and having to write cryptic market announcements. He probably hired a new PR company just for the latter.

Perhaps I didn’t explain my point well gbk. The U.K. validation process is there to validate tests for use in the U.K. It would seem wrong for avacta to put its own branded lft aimed at the wider world through that process - especially if it’s a copy of the U.K. lft that has already been through that process.

Excellent posts benbenben and good analysis pottery. So its becoming clear that Avacta have two fingers in an already enormous ltf pie. The sovereign UK branded lft is built on affimers, made scalable by BBI and collaboratively developed by a range of UK companies selected last year. The Avacta branded lft AffiDX™ is a separate product - probably very similar if not identical to the UK lft - but definitely following the same manufacturing blueprint.

It neatly explains a few things:
- GAD is able to manufacture the AffiDX™ straightaway as its based on the same manufacturing blueprint as the UK lft
- as highlighted by potterexpert, Sir Al reference to 'several million' per month seemed much lower compared to previous bullish statements - but that is because he is only referring to the AffiDX™ test here.
- Avacta couldn't really be seen to utilise UK government bodies to clinically validate their own branded version of the UK lft so they decided to do this in Europe.

I reckon that BBI and Abingdon were in on the UK lft from the start and most of their capacity is utilised for the UK lft. This capacity has recently been expanded to include GAD and ODX as per benbenbens post. The UK lft appears to be developing in line with the timescale set in the PA document - manufacturing by BBI and Abingdon may have already started and an announcement of the first lfts rolling of the production line could be imminent. The UK lft will be revolutionary compared to other lfts as it will be anterior nose swab based with 95%+ sensitivity. Intriguing to think that perhaps the UK lft is already combining affimer and mologic technology. And to answer Mucks point, perhaps the UK government have committed to make a significant part of the lft production available to developing countries?

All good!

Was going to post but realise I’m just repeating myself.... Still think the procurement is just a market testing exercise to cover the government’s back in case of future challenges to them stepping into this market. The key players in the sovereign lft consortium were selected last year and surescreen and moologic were not part of it. They are being awarded small slices of business to ensure their long term survival and to keep them ‘on board’. ODX are likely manufacturing both the moologic lft and the sovereign lft.

Relax everyone, we are part of the domestic lft manufacturing consortium, this is a separate strand from the procurement and testing of commercial lfts - we don't need to be mentioned. It is subject to strict ndas but here is a timeline based on some hard facts:

9/10/2020 Avact mentioned by government under testing technologies of interest
https://post.parliament.uk/the-latest-in-covid-19-testing-developing-new-technologies/

16/10/2020 Boris: we have started building the infrastructure for domestic manufacture of lft tests:
https://twitter.com/i/status/1317123043274166276

17/10/2020 Huffington Post: As it happens, I’m told bioscience firms that are members of BIVDA (the British In-Vitro Diagnostic Association) have indeed been asked by NHS Test and Trace to “repurpose” their manufacturing capabilities, amending processes for things like pregnancy tests to use their factories to produce the new Covid tests. Two firms alone, BBI and Abingdon, will have a manufacturing capacity of upto seven million test a day, once issues like tech transfer are resolved and test sensitivity standards are passed.
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/boris-johnson-moonshot-tiers_uk_5f89fb4fc5b66ee9a5efcc47

28/10/2020: David Wilson, Avacta commercial director confirms the government are working are working with Avacta on a UK manufactured test
https://twitter.com/i/status/1321519187014111233

7/12/2020 PA Consulting contracted to manage delivery of 2M/day lfts from UK manufacturing capacity
https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/Attachment/0e2237f3-e917-4957-9711-6de1c33be75d

4/1/2021 Confirmation that odx are working on an Avacta lft
https://mobile.twitter.com/ryan8789/status/1346218030158786562

19/1/2021 Government confirms 6.2bn is set aside for LFTs and ‘new technology’
https://t.co/9sGygDfqVm?amp=1

30/1/2021 Pre-scale up production testing with UK manufacturers due for completion
https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/Attachment/0e2237f3-e917-4957-9711-6de1c33be75d

I think it’s fair to say that we have all been fairly frustrated by the delays of getting a test to market over the past three months. But I wonder whether we will look back on this period in future as transformational. Creating an effective reagent for detecting a virus is something we already achieved previously for zika in 2016 - we know affimers work. But turning that into a marketable lft requires developing a manufacturing blueprint that can be used by producers worldwide using standard existing manufacturing techniques, processes and materials, keeping cost per device down to 50p or less. It also requires building up a network of manufacturers that want to work with us - Boris has helped us with that. These things normally take years so if we have cracked all of this, we may be able to churn out a wide variety of instant tests for COVID-19, flu, various cancers, anti-biotic resistance, food safety, environmental health, animal diseases over the coming years. Cheap lfts is where diagnostics are going - meets our desire for instant gratification in the west and works equally well in countries without lab capacity.

Yes good point, and the recent surescreen award is another curious one. Maybe it’s because the govt are desperate to cover all avenues and also to be seen to be doing that so they can’t be challenged? I just think that if avacta wasn’t involved they would have communicated very differently over the past few months. And if we are involved at all, I can’t really see the govt betting on multiple reagents. And being able to demonstrate ramped up affimer supplies in December as previously stated by Al (U.K. produced) should have helped.

Thks scardycat - I wonder whether a five pound test might be more competitive for developing countries than mologics own test

And there was this in December https://bidstats.uk/tenders/2020/W50/740622567

Thks scardeycat- would this be another partner in our U.K. consortium? https://bidstats.uk/tenders/2021/W02/742916418
Does anyone know this outfit?

Gbk47 - one reason why it had to be secret I think is that the govt weren’t entirely sure it would work (most of what they have touched hasnt so not entirely unreasonable) and to hedge their bets they also commissioned a procurement alongside. They couldnt really be publicly talking about the domestic test during that procurement and expect anyone to bid - that’s why they only released the pa contract after the procurement closed. I don’t have all the answers but I can’t think of any alternative explanations of what has gone on so far.

Should be easy enough for Medusa to manufacture from the BBI blueprint in their new factories and sell direct to the corporate sector across the world

Gkb47 - this would be a classic scenario where the U.K. govt definitely would insist on an nda and it explains the lack of noise from avacta but also odx and abingdon

There have been a number of incidents that suggest avacta could be at the centre of this domestic lft. The odx linked in post, the nhs manager that questioned why they couldn’t use the avacta test a few weeks ago, the huffington post article right at the start of the talk about a cheap U.K. test.

M912 equals 180 million tests - so that’s 3 months worth of tests, confirms the tender is simply to make sure the govt have a business case for going in-house