Replies to post #234408 on Biotech Values

[jbog]

Abbott's test, if proved reliable could be more advantageous to the active population than any vaccine at this point.

The current testing system is nothing more than useless.

[biocqr]

97.1% sensitivity & 98.5% specificity....

Thoughts On a New Coronavirus Test (And on Testing)

https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/08/27/thoughts-on-a-new-coronavirus-test-and-on-testing

For this assay, those come out to a sensitivity of 97.1% (positive results detected when there should have been a positive) and a specificity of 98.5% (negative results when there should indeed have been a negative). Flipping those around, you’ll see that about 1.5 to 3% of the time, you will tell someone who’s infected that they’re not, or tell someone who’s not infected that they are. That’s about what you can expect for a test that sells for $5 and takes 15 minutes to read out with no special equipment, but such tests (if used properly) can be very valuable.

[DewDiligence]

ABT apparently got a $750M order from US government for 150M BinaxNOW tests:

🚨 President @realDonaldTrump has announced the purchase and production of 150 million rapid tests.

This is a major development that will help our country to remain open, get Americans back to work, and kids back to school!

— Kayleigh McEnany 45 Archived (@PressSec45) August 27, 2020

[DewDiligence]

Roche’s will launch 15-min COVID-19 test in EU in late September—will seek FDA EUA:

https://www.roche.com/media/releases/med-cor-2020-09-01b.htm

The SARS-CoV-2 Rapid Antigen Test is for use in point of care settings for both symptomatic and asymptomatic people… The test has a sensitivity of 96.52% and a specificity of 99.68%, based on 426 samples from two independent study centers.

At launch, there will be 40 million SARS-CoV-2 Rapid Tests available, per month. This capacity will increase more than two-fold at the end of this year to help with testing demands of healthcare systems globally.

Similar to ABT’s BinaxNOW test (#msg-157908540), Roche’s rapid COVID-19 test uses lateral flow (rather than PCR) and detects SARS-CoV-2 protein (rather than RNA).

Roche has not yet disclosed the price per test.

[DewDiligence]

Revenue for ABT—boost for overall economy:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/airline-news/2020/09/24/united-airlines-introduces-covid-19-rapid-testing-program-hawaii/3515043001/

[DewDiligence]

ABT’s Binax-NOW COVID-19_test_now_availabe_w/o_a_prescription:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/abbotts-binaxnow-covid-19-rapid-175500934.html

ABT has partnered with eMed to provide online ordering and instruction on usage.

The test generates a result in 15 minutes. The retail price is $25.