Abbotts Novel COVID-19 Test Device Will Read Out Results in 5 Minutes, FDA Grants Emergency Use

FDA recently granted emergency use of a COVID-19 test designed by Abbott Laboratories. This platform will be a turning point in the coronavirus diagnosis market. The device called ‘ID Now’ has been primarily designed for emergency centers and testing labs. It is the fastest testing method that can detect the results in 5 minutes.

In the announcement made on March 27th, Abbott talked about producing 50,000 ID NOW COVID-19 tests daily but based on latest news, the company has struggled to meet those production numbers.

Among molecular point-of-care testing platforms in the U.S., Abbott’s ID NOW has the highest installed base. This, coupled with the introduction of the COVID-19 test, a very wide acceptance of the company’s platform across all types of healthcare settings is likely to be on the cards.

Epidemics such as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and COVID-19 will continue to be an important driver for the growth of the in-vitro diagnostics market and especially the molecular diagnostics segment is expected to play a significant role in the early detection and diagnosis of these highly infectious diseases like COVID-19 to avoid the spread of the outbreak.

The U.S. is currently conducting around 100,000 tests daily, which is still considered to be significantly lower than the demand. Around 1.5 million tests have been conducted in the U.S. till now, which is significantly lower on a per capita basis as compared to countries such as South Korea, Italy and Germany.

Steps such as development and approvals of point-of-care diagnostics are being taken to make the COVID-19 tests more accessible to the U.S. citizens. On March 21, the Cepheid Xpert Xpress SARS-CoV-2 point-of-care diagnostic test was given an emergency approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. A few days ago, Chembio Diagnostics and Molecule Holdings launched their point-of-care tests for diagnosing COVID-19.