Ann: Study Confirms Targeted Sensitivity of COVID-19 Test, page-324

Very straightforward logic:
Marketing or advertising for sale to personsa medical device without authority nor entry onto the Register of Therapeutic Goods is fairly illegal. (Covered in Australia by both the Therapeutic Goods Act and relevant regulations, but its why Australian tv isn't saturated with drug ads to the extent tv is in the USA...)
ADO isn't allowed to market (aka: "encouragement for customers - individual persons - to buy with respect to diagnosis of disease"...) its tests yet - because the TGA and FDA haven't yet given marketing approval - but it does have a product it can talk to distributors about *and get them interested in, so it can actually market and sell it once approval is given.


So how do you get product into people's hands without selling or marketing it to them ?
You just make sure a sample ends up in distributor's hands somehow, and if they're interested they can work out a use for it on behalf of their final customers.
You didn't sell it, you didn't promote it for sale, you didn't even go to their door and tell them about it - ideally they just come to you asking; no money was spent on fluffing them from nobodies into potential customers, and no money changed hands.

Even without selling/encouraging customers to buy anything to people yet, you can use free samples to:

• Introduce your product to new audiences unfamiliar with your brand.
• Foster relationships with new customers and inspire loyalty with existing customers.
• Expand the Market's knowledge about the products you offer.
• Earn attention for your brand at or leading up to an event.

And its entirely legal to do so, because you aren't advertising the product for sale to individual persons at that point.
And when you finally do get marketing approval, the producer and distributor cooperate on getting relevant marketing into the only hands that really matter for your test - prescribing doctors and procurement agents, because they're the final decision-makers on "which tests do my patients receive?" questions.



(Drug dealing works on the same idea: Your customer's first few times should be as low-cost as possible, and as stimulating as possible, so that they come to rely on it and will pay you good money for it next time.)
"First you move some product, then you get the money - once you get the money, then you get the [thing of your choice]." - Tony Montana, 1983.