DOD awards $231m contract to Australian company to boost COVID rapid test availability
The US Department of Defense (DOD) has awarded a US $231.8 million contract to Ellume USA, the US arm of Brisbane-based Ellume, to “increase domestic capacity and deliver COVID-19 home tests”.
“Ellume has been ramping up manufacturing and will ship 100,000 test kits per month to the US from February through July,” said Andy Slavitt, the White House COVID-19 senior adviser.
The company will scale up production to more than 19 million test kits per month by the end of the year at the U.S. facility, 8.5 million of which are guaranteed to the U.S. government as part of the the National Strategy for the COVID-19 Response and Pandemic Preparedness plan.
The Ellume COVID-19 home test is the first rapid self-test for coronavirus detection authorized by the U.S. FDA for both asymptomatic and symptomatic use without a prescription.
The test can be performed in approximately 15 minutes from a nasal swab specimen with results reported on the smartphone app. The test kit can detect COVID-19 with 95% accuracy within roughly 15 minutes. It costs about $30, but U.S. government hopes that mass production will bring down the costs.
“We are prioritizing our partnership with the U.S. government to mobilize tests quickly and in the most impactful way. We will fulfill the order for these tests at the same time as we ramp up the output across our production facilities, creating more possibilities for retail and private institution use in the future,” said Ellume founder and CEO, Dr. Sean Parsons.
