I have just picked up from the local chemist a pack of rapid flow testing kits.
Depends on your point of view, and where the virus came from, but I found it frustrating to see “Made in China” on the pack.
Are we really so bad in the UK we cannot make our own testing kits?
Over to you Mr Hancock…
I suppose it’s all down to cost.
I’ve no doubt we have the capability…
‘Made in China’ might be a reference to the source of the virus. Just a thought
Some are made in India…
Ironic isn’t it?
Some (viruses) are made in Kent. Or maybe it was Madrid (given its detection in March 2019). Took 100 years to work out where Spanish Flu might have come from.
The tests kits utilise gold nanoparticles (why the test stripes appear dark red). The nanoparticles are likely supplied by a Welsh company (British Biocell). If the cassette includes nitrocellulose as the chromatographic paper (looks like that, rather than PVDF), then its India. The finest nitrocellulose is made by hand in India. PVDF; likely Whatman or Pall (US companies). The antibodies used in it; anti-COv-2 possibly from China; its Chinese made test, but a US company has exclusive global rights to it.
The original concept of the lateral flow assay (pregnancy) was invented by someone from the University of Bedford, who come over as a bit eccentric.
The challenge is volume. By and large, these kits are assembled by hand, in batches. The paper bit is “striped” on a roll, using essentially an ink jet printer, and then sliced into strips. Then all the components are assembled by hand. Global capacity for these types of tests is a struggle.
The key is the antibodies, and that is proprietary. You can’t just buy the same antibody off the shelf. Briefly, if its a mouse antibody, immunize your mouse, typically over 4 weeks. Euthanize it, perform cell fusion and start growing the spleen fusion cells. Then you start the fairly arduous approach to finding the particular cells producing the particular antibody that you need. Its worse than 1 in a 1000 odds. Lateral flow assays have particular requirements for the antibodies being used. The mouse part can be skipped if the company has some fairly fancy expression system, but I’ve found these to be a bit immature for commercial work.
ie. A UK company could develop a test, but there is no telling if they could produce a test that met the requirements the DH set all that time ago (pretty stiff requirements, and the first roundor two of submitted tests utterly failed to meet the standard).
Costs (per test) will be broadly similar, performance is the key issue, and ability to supply in the volume needed (2 tests per adult, per week, open ended contract, plus surveillance tests, plus school testing, plus workplace testing etc etc). Possible some tests will be more expensive because of some licenced tech; any PCR test includes a royalty to Roche (HIV tests were found to be 60% costs to Roche). Depends how they are attaching the gold to the antibody.
Dropping some serious knowledge bombs there, Saz.
