Wednesday, October 23, 2024

Roche To Greatly Increase Output Of Mpox PCR [Diagnostic] Test Kits, For Africa, And EU...


At the opening of this month, we mentioned that Abbott had cleared FDA emergency authorizations to deliver its kit into Africa, to track the spread of Mpox. Now Barron's reports that Roche will also ramp up production of its own Mpox PCR test kits.

This is good news, but with over 42,000 cases -- it needs to be done, like yesterday.

. . .Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche said Wednesday that it was increasing its capacity to produce diagnostic tests to detect mpox, amid a flare-up of the potentially deadly virus.

"We've ramped up our production in order to meet potential demand," Roche chief Thomas Schinecker told reporters as he presented the company's third quarter sales results.

Fresh outbreaks of the viral disease -- some involving a new variant -- have hit a range of countries in Africa in recent months, with more than 1,100 mpox deaths recorded on the continent so far this year, according to the African Union's health agency.

The disease has also spread further afield, with Germany on Tuesday recording a first infection with the new mpox variant clade 1b, while single cases have also been detected in Sweden and Thailand.

"It seems like there are more cases in Europe," Schinecker said.

"Maybe they are not all in the media yet, but there are already more mpox cases."

Roche first developed its PCR test to detect mpox during the 2022 outbreak.

Schinecker, who previously headed Roche's diagnostics unit, did not disclose Wednesday how many tests the company was currently making.

"But we could manage probably a 10-times higher demand," he insisted.

Roche, the world's largest maker of cancer drugs and one of the biggest makers of diagnostic tests, on Wednesday posted better-than-expected sales for the first nine months of the year, up two percent at nearly 45 billion Swiss francs ($52 billion). . . .


Now you know -- onward, resolutely. . . onward.

नमस्ते

No comments: