Abbott shares climb as US approves 15-minute Covid test
A 15-minute Covid test from Abbott Laboratories that will be priced at $5 (€4.25) has been granted emergency authorisation for use in the US, a breakthrough that could ease the bottleneck that has crimped much of the US's testing capacity.
The company’s shares climbed as much as 13% at one stage. The product, dubbed BinaxNOW, works without relying on laboratory equipment at a time when labs can take up to two weeks to produce results. It uses a nasal swab and a small reactive card, and it can be administered by a range of health-care workers, including pharmacists, at almost any location.
Abbott will start shipping the test within two weeks and intends to manufacture 50 million tests a month by October. The aim is to meet a surge in demand from people seeking to return to schools and work.
Demand for an antigen test could be enormous from employers, restaurants, games, and events, and transport using these tests for ensuring safety, Vijay Kumar, an analyst at Evercore ISI, said.
“This test approval represents a key requirement for society to ultimately return to a sense of normalcy,” said Robbie Marcus, an analyst at JPMorgan.
He forecast Covid-19-related testing may generate up to $2.8bn of revenue for the year, “a sizeable tailwind for a company already better exposed to the virus than many in our coverage”.
The test uses so-called lateral flow technology, similar to the method used in at-home pregnancy tests.
Essentially, these tests run a liquid sample along the surface of a pad with reactive molecules to show a result.
While a pregnancy test is designed to detect a hormone, Abbott’s BinaxNOW looks for an antigen, a tiny portion of the coronavirus protein that’s collected from inside the nose.
“It’s detecting them at a critical point in the infection cycle, when they are at the highest risk of spreading disease,” said John Hackett, divisional vice president of applied research and technology at Abbott Diagnostics.
“This will be a powerful tool in preventing the transmission of the virus and helping us return to normal life.”
While several other companies are selling antigen tests that also work quickly, they require some equipment to get the results.
The technology also sometimes yields lower accuracy in exchange for working faster.
The BinaxNOW is 97.1% sensitive, meaning it correctly diagnoses those with the infection that often, and 98.5% specific, meaning an infection is correctly ruled out that often.
The US is currently running about 800,000 tests a day around the country, or 24 million a month, according to the Covid Tracking Project.
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