The number of people being tested for the coronavirus has been limited by national shortages in tests and days-long waits for results. Two companies in Indiana are working to increase public testing.
After six weeks in development, Roche Diagnostics is shipping about 400,000 tests for COVID-19 each week after receiving approval from the Food and Drug Administration last Friday. The company’s North American headquarters in Indianapolis has been managing the logistics of sending the new test kits to labs across the country.
Randy Pritchard, senior vice president of marketing, says the company’s kit can get results in three hours once placed in the machine to be analyzed.
“There had been testing methodologies available previously, mostly through lab developed tests where they, labs, they make their own recipe to understand and identify positive patients,” says Pritchard. “This was the first fully automated high throughput test available for the coronavirus.”
Roche is not saying publicly how much they’re charging labs for the test. But Pritchard says the automated process should help keep test costs lower.
