Hologic announced that it has been awarded a $119-million contract from the United States government to expand its production capacity for COVID-19 molecular tests. The contract will support capital and labor investments enabling Hologic to provide 13 million COVID-19 tests per month for the U.S. market by January of 2022, according to a press release.
Hologic’s Panther Fusion SARS-CoV-2 Assay and Aptima SARS-CoV-2 Assay received emergency use authorization (EUA) from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in March 2020 and May 2020, respectively. The tests run on the Panther Fusion and Panther systems, which provide initial results in approximately three hours and process more than 1,000 tests in 24 hours.
The Department of Defense Joint Rapid Acquisition Cell collaborated with the Department of the Air Force’s Acquisition COVID-19 Task Force and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), part of the Department of Health and Human Service’s Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, to award the contract with BARDA funding. BARDA is also separately supporting development of Hologic’s COVID-19 assays.
