NEW YORK – Swift Biosciences announced on Monday it will exclusively distribute BillionToOne's test kit for detecting SARS-CoV-2.
The qSanger-COVID-19 assay, which received Emergency Use Authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration earlier this month, detects SARS-CoV-2 in samples from nasal, nasopharyngeal, and oropharyngeal swabs and has a testing capacity of 1 million tests per day, according to Swift Biosciences.
The test also uses different instruments and chemicals than other COVID-19 tests, allowing it to avoid supply chain issues that have plagued the pandemic response, according to Swift Bio. It sequences the virus's genome and doesn't require RNA extraction, and it can be adapted at labs with Sanger sequencers, the company said in a statement. Swift CEO Nathan Wood said clinical laboratories can use excess Sanger instruments to perform 3,000 tests per day per instrument.
Financial and other terms of the deal were not disclosed.
In April, Swift Biosciences provided BillionToOne with 60,000 research-use-only reactions. Swift will lead all worldwide commercial efforts for the test, excluding Brazil, and the test is available for purchase now.