U.S. Announces Deal With Abbott Laboratories for Rapid Covid-19 Tests -- 2nd Update
August 27 2020 - 6:28PM
Dow Jones News
By Rebecca Ballhaus
The Trump administration unveiled Thursday a $750 million deal
to buy 150 million rapid Covid-19 tests from Abbott Laboratories, a
move that would substantially expand the nation's capacity for
rapid testing.
The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday granted
emergency-use authorization to the company for a $5 rapid-response
Covid-19 antigen test that is roughly the size of a credit card.
The test could be administered in a doctor's or school nurse's
office and uses technology similar to home pregnancy tests. It
returns results in about 15 minutes.
"This is a major development that will help our country to
remain open, get Americans back to work and kids back to school,"
White House senior adviser Alyssa Farah said.
The White House announcement comes as Mr. Trump is expected to
tout his response to the pandemic that has claimed roughly 180,000
American lives in his speech Thursday at the Republican National
Convention, where he will formally accept the party's presidential
nomination for the second time.
Abbott said Wednesday it plans to ship tens of millions of the
tests in September and expects to increase production to 50 million
tests in October. The October total would be roughly double the
number of tests performed in the U.S. in July.
Abbott said its data show the new antigen test has demonstrated
sensitivity -- the percent of positive cases a test accurately
detects -- of about 97%. Rapid antigen tests are generally thought
to be less sensitive than lab-based PCR tests.
The White House has long used a different rapid test created by
Abbott to test the president and those who come into contact with
him. The company has come under scrutiny for that test. It was
forced to revise instructions for use of the test when a
preliminary study by a major medical center found that it
frequently gave false negative results.
Abbott shares rose almost 8% Thursday, boosted by the
emergency-use authorization and news of the large White House
purchase.
Write to Rebecca Ballhaus at Rebecca.Ballhaus@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
August 27, 2020 18:13 ET (22:13 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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