HHS, DOD invest more than $562M to increase COVID-19 test manufacturing
Friday, October 22, 2021
Source: MassDevice
The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) and Department of Defense (DOD) have awarded more than $562 million for COVID-19 test manufacturing.
The funding — part of the American Rescue Plan to boost manufacturing of key products that increase domestic testing supply — went to a dozen U.S. companies to support the production of supplies including pipette tips, protective packaging, swabs and reagents, according to a news release.
HHS and DOD’s investments follow President Joe Biden’s announcements of efforts to make COVID-19 testing more available to Americans, including a $3 billion investment in rapid testing to quadruple the supply of at-home tests by December.
Here are the companies that received awards as part of the $562 million investment from the U.S. government:
- Nalge Nunc (a subsidiary of Thermo Fisher Scientific): $192.5 million for domestic manufacturing of pipette tips used for COVID-19 sample collection and test processing.
- OraSure Technologies: $109 million for retrofitting facilities to increase manufacturing capacity for at-home, rapid antigen self-tests.
- Cepheid: $63.8 million to increase production of plastic overmold, an essential material for rapid test kits.
- Labcon: $59.3 million to increase production of pipettes and tubes for COVID-19 testing.
- Mettler-Toledo Rainin: $35.8 million to increase production of pipette tips for COVID-19 testing.
- Eurofins: $30 million to expand production for components used to test clinical specimens for the presence of SARS-CoV-2.
- CSP Technologies: $19.27 million to scale up production of Activ-Film for packaging that ensures test integrity.
- Porex: $16.2 million to increase production of pipette tip filters that prevent specimen contamination.
- Steripack: $14.7 million to kickstart production of collection vials used for nasal swab tests.
- Princeton BioMeditech: $9.9 million to increase production of COVID-19 testing and diagnostic kits.
- US Cotton: $6.5 million to increase production capacity of the polyester-tipped swabs used in COVID-19 home test kits and mass testing settings.
- Qiagen: $4 million to expand the manufacturing capacity of reagents and reagent kits used to detect SARS-CoV-2.
- Luminostics: $2 million to increase production capacity of Clip COVID-19 point-of-care test kits.