Free lateral flow testing for SARS-CoV-2 may end in the UK by next spring, the head of Innova Medical Group, a maker of lateral flow tests, says, according to the Financial Times.
It adds that while employer access to free tests has wound down in England, free lateral flow kits have still been publicly available at pharmacies or from a government website. Innova has in particular supplied the UK with more than 1.5 billion lateral flow devices under contracts worth more than £4 billion, FT says.
But Dan Elliott, Innova's chief executive, tells it that he would be "surprised" if free testing past the spring and that he was preparing for a shift to a retail environment. He notes, though, that the end date of the program would likely depend on SARS-CoV-2 infection rates.
As FT adds, there have been questions about the accuracy of lateral flow tests. In June, the US Food and Drug Administration warned against using the Innova test, saying that its performance has not been adequately established, as 360Dx reported then.