Roche Rolls Out Coronavirus Antibody Test
20 May 2020 - 7:29AM
Dow Jones News
By Maria Armental
Swiss health-care giant Roche Holding AG is rolling out its
coronavirus antibody test at more than 20 commercial and hospital
lab sites in the U.S., the company said Tuesday.
Laboratory Corp. of America Holdings' LabCorp Diagnostics and
other commercial labs will be able to handle more than 2 million
tests a week by June, Roche said.
Roche's Elecsys Anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody test, which identifies
antibodies made by the body to fight off the virus, received
emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration
this month.
For many diseases antibodies remain in the blood for weeks,
months or even years after infection. Antibody tests are performed
on a blood sample and are different from the swab tests used to
diagnose a current infection.
"Reliable, high-quality antibody testing is essential to help us
overcome this pandemic and will play an important role in getting
people back to work," Matt Sause, president and chief executive of
Roche Diagnostics North America, said in a statement.
Roche said the test has proven 100% accurate at detecting
Covid-19 antibodies, and 99.8% accurate at ruling out the presence
of those antibodies. In other words, only two in every 1,000
samples lacking the antibodies would produce a "false positive"
result.
--Denise Roland contributed to this article.
Write to Maria Armental at maria.armental@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 19, 2020 17:14 ET (21:14 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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