The following statements are from Ellume's website relating to its contract with the US Department of Defense:
The White House announced Monday it is buying 8.5 million rapid coronavirus tests that can be taken at home without a prescription and that yield immediate results. The US$231.8 million contract will allow the Australian company Ellume, which manufacturers the tests, to quickly scale up its production and create a manufacturing facility in the United States. Once running, that factory will be able to produce 19 million tests per month.
Under the new contract, Ellume is expecting to ship 100,000 tests to the United States per month from February to July.
“That’s good but obviously not where we need to be,” Slavitt said.
By the end of the year, the company’s manufacturing is expected to scale up to be able to produce more than 19 million test kits per month. At least 8.5 million tests have been promised to the U.S. government. The rest will remain in the United States but will be sold through retail stores or distributed in large-scale purchases by private companies or institutions.
“We’ve gotten a lot of interest from retailers to logistics companies wanting to protect their staff to universities and health care groups,” Parsons said. The Biden administration has not said how it will use the 8.5 million tests it bought, but Ellume’s contract was made through the Department of Defense, making it possible at least some of the tests may be allocated to the military.
To achieve large-scale production this year, Ellume will first need to build and get a U.S. manufacturing plant up and running, which isn’t expected until the third quarter of this year.
“We want to help the U.S. reopen as safely and as quickly as possible,” Parsons said in a statement. “The Ellume COVID-19 Home Test is the only authorized test of its kind and is an essential tool for the broader pandemic response in the U.S.”
For months, at least two dozen companies have been trying to develop home tests, most of them rapid antigen tests that detect proteins on the surface of the virus. Because labs are not involved in such tests, there was no clear way to report the results. Without that data, experts warned that the country would be flying blind as it navigates the later stages of the pandemic.
In coming weeks, more new tests are expected to be approved. Experts said that with increasing capacity, a growing need exists for state and federal officials to come up with a national strategy for how to deploy the tests more effectively and to provide federal funding for regular, dedicated mass testing in schools, hard-hit nursing homes and among essential workers.
Just taking the information provided above and just trying to join the dots, the US chose Ellume's test kit because it was the best and most cost effective rapid antigen test in the market at the time. Because Ellume cannot supply sufficient quantities of the test kit to meet the demands, the US has provided the funding for the production of a plant that can supply 19 million tests per month.
The US military will be the first users of the kits up until July because it is important for the defense forces to be fit and healthy and control the virus. So using the kits and getting fast results enables faster isolation of affected individuals.
Funding is now provided for schools to introduce testing so as production scales up, programs will be developed employing health workers to test school children before they are allowed back in class. The rapid antigen test is ideal for the quick return of school children and the quick isolation of affected children and Ellume has already indicated this in its statement above.
So drawing assumptions from the above statements, the US have planned the use of rapid antigen testing as its key strategy to help control the spread of the virus along with the use of the vaccines to get the country back to some form of normality. Hence, the US Government's commitment to help Ellume build the US plant is designed for continual use of the rapid antigen testing.
As Ellume requires Anteobind for its effective use of the test kits, there would need to be an ongoing commitment from Ellume for the continued use of Anteobind to enusre that their kits continue to be the best and most cost effective rapid antigen tests on the market.
ADO Price at posting:
22.0¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
(20min delay)