AUS
NZ
UK
CA
USA
IND
Source: Horth Rasur, Shutterstock
Summary
- Avacta Group is all set to launch its rapid lateral flow Covid test by Q1 2021.
- The rapid antigen test has been created to spot infectious people for quick isolation.
- The company would now work towards getting CE conformity marker.
Avacta Group Plc (LON:AVCT) is expected to commercially launch its Covid-19 test for professional use in the first quarter of 2021. The rapid lateral flow test developed is effective in detecting the coronavirus.
The company said that it has been able to make good progress in its diagnostics and therapeutics departments in 2020. The developments helped the company to supply important value inflection points in the beginning of January.
The SARS-CoV-2 rapid antigen test developed by the company has been created to spot infectious people for quick isolation, thereby controlling the spread of the virus.
Also read: Avacta (LON:AVCT) Group Enters Licence Agreement with Point Biopharma
Avacta CEO Alastair Smith said that the company would soon establish its supply chain that would help in scaling up the manufacturing of test kits. He also said that the company is also creating a quality management process, which would help in acquiring the accreditation ISO13485 required for medical devices.
According to the latest clinical data, the Covid-19 test might be the most responsive S1 spike protein lateral flow test, Smith added.
The company is now moving towards getting full clinical validation for a CE mark so that it could have a commercial launch by the first quarter. The company has stated that despite the diagnostics department remaining under tremendous pressures, it managed to put together the infrastructure necessary for the commercial launch of the test.
Copyright © 2021 Kalkine Media Pty Ltd.
Also read: AstraZeneca Oxford vaccine could lead to fall in coronavirus spread, claims study
The company’s therapeutics department has seen an expansion of their own pre-clinical pipeline. Also, despite the restrictions and curbs in place, the department’s partnered programmes have been continued.
The initial assessment of the lateral flow rapid antigen test was carried out at one site each in European Union and the UK using samples from patients with the coronavirus confirmed by PCR. Thirty samples that were positive and had cycle threshold (CT) values of 26 or lower were tested. Of these, half had CT values in the range of 22 to 26. The test had successfully identified almost all of them correctly as positive.
Also read: AstraZeneca (LON:AZN) tries to clear the air over vaccine shortage with EU
The results indicated almost 96.7 per cent clinical sensitivity for samples that had a CT value less than 26. What was also interesting was that 26 negative samples were put through the lateral flow test and it correctly identified all of them as negative. This gave the test a clinical distinction of 100 per cent.
