In an effort to expand SARS-CoV-2 — the virus that causes COVID-19 — tests by millions per month, the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has invested $6.5 million into two commercial diagnostic laboratories: Aegis Sciences Corporation and Sonic Healthcare USA.
These investments will bring critical lab equipment to the two companies and allow for both increased staffing and infrastructure that, according to the government, will allow for an additional 1 million tests each week by early October. For Aegis, this will take the form of an expanded workforce and new lab space at Nashville, Tenn., testing facilities, while for Sonic, testing capacity will be ramped up at eight testing facilities.
“We are committed to leveraging every possible opportunity to expand the nation’s SARS-CoV-2 testing capacity over the next several months,” Adm. Brett Giroir, M.D., Assistant Secretary for Health, said. “For this opportunity, we were able to match available instrumentation and reagents with commercial labs that were ready to immediately expand their services. We are honored to work with these labs and life sciences tools companies to ensure increased access to testing as may be needed this fall.”
Aegis will seek to process more than 60,000 test samples per day beginning in September, with results possible in under 48 hours. Sonic will boost capacity to grant greater patient access to testing. The deal also makes room for two other companies, though: Beckman Coulter Life Sciences and Thermo Fisher Scientific.
Beckman will provide equipment that will allow Aegis and Sonic to optimize SARS-SoV-2 testing to reach as many as 10,000 tests per day at 10 separate sites, leading to 100,000 additional tests daily across the U.S. Thermo Fisher will provide HHS with extraction and purification systems, and real-time polymerise chain reaction tests capable of running 384 samples at a time. These systems will be placed in both Aegis and Sonic facilities to open up additional sample capacity of 140,000 per day.