Becton Dickinson

BD has also granted the offerings' underwriters an option to purchase up to an additional $450 million of common stock and depositary shares.

The firm said it will use the funds for general corporate purposes, which may include investment and acquisitions, working capital, and debt repayment.

The company will use proceeds from the offering to pay off debt related to other notes and to partially fund a redemption of other notes.

The firm has suspended its fiscal year financial guidance due to ongoing uncertainty associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.

The kit is designed for the qualitative detection of nucleic acid from SARS-CoV-2 nasal, nasopharyngeal, and oropharyngeal swab samples.

The test, run on the BD Max system, allows hospitals to diagnose SARS-CoV-2 on site and receive results in less than three hours.

The joint submission of the coronavirus assay is part of a long-standing collaboration between the two firms to put BioGX assays on the BD Max system.

In announcing a national emergency on Friday, Trump paraded out executives from the private sector as the administration tries to increase testing capacity