With the way things are going, the demand for COVID-19 test kits isn’t going to be declining any time soon. To match up with the growing global demands, South Korean drugmakers are also gearing up to take a bite out of this market share along with the domestic diagnostic kit manufacturers.
COVID-19 Test Kit by Philosys Healthcare
Gmate COVID-19 Ag is a rapid antigen test kit that is approved by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety. Philosys Healthcare will be shipping the Korean product to Malaysia. Since its approval on January 21, the company has already shipped around 600,000 units of the COVID-19 test kits from Korea and plans to do 1.5 million by February.
The company is also in talks with other European nations like Greece and Romania according to a Philosys official.
COVID-19 Test Kits by Seegene Inc.
Seegene Inc.‘s new kit detects five viruses including COVID-19 and influenza. It has the approval of the Brazilian Health Regulatory Agency (ANVISA). Seegene, through the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO), has already exported the Allplex SARS-CoV-2/FluA/FluB/RSV Assay to Brazil.
The next country for exporting the Covid-19 test kit is Peru as it will solidify the Korean company’s position in Latin America.
The Korean company, Seegene Inc. has also developed the world’s first COVID-19 diagnostic kit that can detect multiple mutant strains of the virus in a single test. It can detect the B 1.1.7 variant, first detected in the U.K. (September 2020), the 501Y.V2 variant detected in South Africa (October 2020), and the P.1 variant detected in Brazil (January 2021). The Allplex SARS-CoV-2 Variants I Assay will identify and detect the different strains including the ones which are now found to be more contagious.
Diagnostic Kit Manufacturers Partnering with Local Pharma Companies
Humasis, a South Korean diagnostic kit manufacturer will supply COVID-19 antigen testing kits to Celltrion, a biopharmaceutical company from Incheon, South Korea.
Another kit manufacturer, SD BioSensor will be providing a rapid antigen test kit, HANMI COVID-19 Quick TEST, to Hanmi Pharmaceutical. And, Hanmi will then supply it to medical institutions.
Testing in 3 minutes!
In the light of the recurring pandemic waves, South Korea is even planning to commercialize COVID-19 test kits that will be able to give results within three minutes!
The ICT and Ministry of Science are testing a new kit that is based on semiconductor technology. This type of test has low chances of false negatives, higher sensitivity, and 95% ability to identify true positives. Unlike most of the existing COVID-19 tests that require swabs, it will work on testing from saliva samples.
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