The UK’s top pharmaceutical and diagnostic companies are teaming up to rapidly develop and roll out millions of coronavirus tests in the coming months as part of the next phase of the government’s five-pillar national testing strategy to identify if people have the virus.
A number of existing suppliers and UK-based global companies have already responded positively to the Government’s call to action on the testing national effort.
Pharmaceutical giants like AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) have been creating new national business collaborations, to help deliver on the Government’s plan to carry out 100,000 coronavirus tests a day by the end of April.
Their work primarily focuses on tests to identify whether people currently have the virus, and will be targeted on frontline healthcare and other essential workers who have the virus before deploying the tests to the wider population.
New developments from businesses working to scale-up testing programmes include:
A new testing laboratory to be set up by AstraZeneca, GSK and Cambridge University to be used for screening for coronavirus testing, with the aim of carrying out 30,000 tests a day by the start of May. The companies are exploring the use of alternative chemical reagents for test kits in order to help overcome current supply shortages.
AstraZeneca and GSK are also providing scientific and technical expertise in automation and robotics to support the Government’s new national testing centres.
Thermo Fisher has committed to continuing to supply the UK with testing kits to test for the presence of the coronavirus virus and is working to scale up manufacturing at its existing UK sites.
Oxford Nanopore’s sequencing technology is being used worldwide, including in multiple labs in the UK, to rapidly sequence the coronavirus and other pathogens that may also be present in a sample. This is supporting epidemiology and scientific understanding of coronavirus. The company’s research and development team is also exploring advanced test options using its DNA/RNA sequencing technology.
As part of the Government’s national testing strategy, the expertise and resources of the UK’s world-leading life sciences industries are being pooled to build a large-scale British diagnostics industry as quickly as possible.
To support this, an online portal has launched on GOV.UK providing companies with specifications for our most urgent requirements, and the NHS Business Services Authority has set up a new engagement team allowing companies an easier, more focused route to offer their support.
Companies with proposals able to deliver on these specifications quickly and at scale may also be able to access a range of support from Government, including accelerated regulatory approval, centralised procurement support if appropriate and, in some cases, development grants.
The Government has set up a testing taskforce with over 100 companies and Health Secretary Matt Hancock has set out four challenges to industry in a webinar to help build on progress as we scale up our testing capability:
To provide additional testing consumables that are in short supply, such as swabs, tubes and components for test kits.
For universities, research institutes and private companies to donate additional lab testing capacity for coronavirus tests, supported by best practice guidance on specific requirements.
To develop new technology to diagnose coronavirus quicker than ever before and new methods of delivering tests widely across the UK safely.
Put forward proposals in support of reliable and accurate antibody testing. These should be scalable, resilient and scientifically robust. Proposals could include a range of ideas for end-to-end solutions or address specific challenges in the supply chain.
One such group has already launched to meet the fourth of these challenges. A business consortium, UK Rapid Test Consortium (UK-RTC), including Oxford University, Abingdon Health, BBI Solutions and CIGA Healthcare has launched, in order to design and develop a new antibody test to determine whether people have developed immunity after contracting the virus.
So far, the antibody tests that have gone through the validation process have not proven accurate enough to be rolled out for public use, which is why the Government is also backing efforts to develop a home-grown test.
Only tests that are accurate will be rolled out, to ensure people are not put at risk.