NEW YORK – Omega Diagnostics said Thursday that along with the University of Oxford it has inked a memorandum of understanding with three UK companies to form the UK Rapid Test Consortium (UK-RTC) to jointly develop and manufacture a point-of-care COVID-19 antibody test.
Along with Alva, Scotland-based Omega Diagnostics and the University of Oxford, the consortium includes Abingdon Health, BBI Solutions, and CIGA Healthcare.
The UK government requested that the consortium be formed as part of its five-pillar national testing strategy for the disease to support the development and manufacturing scale-up of the test to determine whether people have developed immunity after contracting the virus.
The initial duration of the memorandum of understanding is six months, and consortium members will leverage their expertise to optimize the test's design for potential accelerated scale-up to manufacturing, Omega said.
When the design has been completed, all members of the consortium will share its specification and standard operating procedures. Manufacturing or assembly, or both, will be undertaken at sites according to capability, including at Omega’s manufacturing facility in Alva.