Shares of Genedrive (LON: GDR) have fallen on Thursday after the company said, in an update on its Covid-19 test kit, that it has “overcome significant technical hurdles”.
Genedrive has been developing a new Point of Care (PoC) molecular workflow and assay for more than 9 months. The test detects the presence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in a nasal swab.
Despite the delays, key specifications of sensitivity, specificity, speed, ease of use, and scalability have now been improved or addressed, the company said in a statement.
The test also targets two genes of the SARS-CoV-2 genome and is shown to be inclusive of all current variants of concern, including the Delta variant.
During design verification, the specificity of the test was 100%, with a PCR comparable limit of detection of 10-20 copies per reaction.
David Budd, CEO of Genedrive, said: “We are pleased to have achieved significant milestones in the development of our Genedrive® COV19-ID Kit and we have a product in which we are extremely proud.
“Once formally validated, we believe we can make commercial in-roads by expanding the opportunities to get a quick and sensitive molecular test for SARS-CoV-2. The product to date demonstrates a suite of features that have significant competitive advantage: simplicity of workflow, an extraction free procedure, biosafety for the user, multi-gene targeting, rapid time to result, high sensitivity, and cost effectiveness.
“Whether in highly vaccinated countries or not, COVID-19 is likely to be an illness that we live with in the long term, necessitating rapid and accurate testing for infection in a wide range of environments, including outside of healthcare settings.”
Despite the company's positivity, shares of Genedrive have fallen over 7.5% to 52p, adding to the current 28% fall in the last three months.
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