NEW YORK – The US Department of Defense said on Monday that it has awarded a $600,000 contract to Qiagen to expand manufacturing capacity of enzymatic reagents and reagent kits used in COVID-19 molecular diagnostic tests.
The contract, awarded on behalf of and in conjunction with the US Department of Health and Human Services, will allow Qiagen to increase its monthly production of reagent kits by 7,000 and enzymes by 5,100 milligrams in its Beverly, Massachusetts, facility by the end of February 2022 to support domestic laboratory testing for COVID-19.
The current manufacturing capacity of Qiagen's Beverly facility is unknown. An email to the company was not immediately returned.
The DoD's Defense Assisted Acquisition Cell, or DA2, led this effort in coordination with the Department of the Air Force's Acquisition COVID-19 Task Force, or DAF ACT.