Sussex company’s rapid test for Covid-19 forms part of Boris Johnson’s ‘Operation Moonshot’

A rapid new test for Covid-19 devised by a Sussex company is helping the Government’s ‘Operation Moonshot’ mass public screening plan.
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The Department for Health and Social Care has confirmed that it has signed a multi-million-pound deal with the small Horsham firm OptiGene for RT-LAMP machines and test kits which provide results within 20 minutes.

And the Department denied some national press reports last week that the kits were accurate in only 50 per cent of trials in a pilot in Greater Manchester.

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Professor Mark Wilcox, co-chair of the Department of Health’s technical validation group, said the tests had been validated in other laboratories and in real-world testing for use in different settings.

OptiGene managing director Michael Andreou SUS-200604-173341001OptiGene managing director Michael Andreou SUS-200604-173341001
OptiGene managing director Michael Andreou SUS-200604-173341001

“It is incorrect to claim the tests have a low sensitivity, with a recent pilot showing overall technical sensitivity of nearly 80 per cent rising to over 96 per cent in individuals with a higher viral load, making it important for detecting individuals in the infectious stage.”

OptiGene, which has been based in Horsham for the past 12 years, says its rapid test kits can process 300 patient samples an hour on a single instrument.

Use of OptiGene’s Direct RT-LAMP tests are part of Boris Johnson’s mass Covid screening strategy.

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OptiGene managing director Michael Andreou, said “It’s working really well. The saliva version test has now proved to be more sensitive than a swab test.”

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SUS-200604-173807001

He said the company planned to use money from the Government contract to invest in developing new faster technology. “Hopefully it will allow us to develop a fully automated test, that is where we would like to go.”

OptiGene - a joint venture with Horsham based company OptiSense and Camberley-based firm GeneSys - first began work on devising test equipment as soon as the coronavirus DNA sequence data was released by the Chinese at the start of the year.

The new rapid tests are being run on a series of instruments developed and manufactured by OptiSense in Horsham and sold under the OptiGene brand and include both portable battery-powered devices as well as a larger high-throughput model.