Polish firm filed 10-minute coronavirus test for authorisation

Polish lab diagnostics firm BioMaxima has filed a 10-minute coronavirus test for the marketing authorisation of the Office for Registration of Medicinal Products, Medical Devices and Biocidal Products (URLP), the Polish Press Agency (PAP) reported on Monday.

Noted at NewConnect, a Warsaw Stock Exchange-run alternative stock exchange allowing smaller companies to trade their shares, the Polish producer reported that “the test allows for swift and mass-scale screening diagnostics.

“This solution enables picking out people infected with the 2019-nCoV from the group of increased risk. Such persons should then be submitted to a more precise and expensive confirmation diagnosis at one of the authorised laboratories or put in an optional quarantine,” said Łukasz Urban, the CEO of BioMaxima.

“We hope that the introduction of screening tests in the current conditions of the flu season would help avoid difficulties in the functioning of international transport, companies and institutions caused by mass uncertainty,” said Mr Urban, adding that ways allowing for differentiation between standard influenza and the one caused by 2019-nCoV were already being introduced in Germany.

The test filed to the URLP was designed by Hangzhou AllTest Biotech Co. Ltd. It is a swift immunochromatographic test that can be used on blood, plasma and serum. The test does not require specialised equipment. Test results are made readable after 10 minutes.

“Apart from healthcare system hospitals and clinics, our clients in Poland include over 80 Sanitary and Epidemiological Station. This guarantees an efficient distribution of the solution that we propose via already existing distribution pathways,” said Mr Urban.

According to its press information, the BioMax intends to launch its own genetic test that would help confirm a coronavirus infection. It would use the real-time PCR technique, which is the most efficient and reliable identification method of the virus’s genetic material. The company expects that this method would allow for the acquisition of the test results in a matter of two hours.