Omega Diagnostics shares have risen significantly on news that the Mologic’s Covid-19 lab-based antibody test it agreed to manufacture at scale has received the CE-mark.

Pending final validation by Public Health England, NHS Scotland and also in the Republic of Ireland, Omega is ready to scale up production of this test and has the supply chains to do so to make 46,000 Covid-19 tests per day.

The CE-mark - ensuring a product complies with EU safety, health and environmental requirements - follows successful independent validation of Mologic’s Elisa test by the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and St George’s, University of London.

READ MORE: Omega Diagnostics gears up for mass roll-out of virus testing kits

Clackmannanshire-based Omega will use its Elisa manufacturing facility in Littleport, Cambridgeshire to manufacture the tests.

Omega and Mologic will now finalise a longer-term supply agreement to commercialise this test which will be used on patient samples sent by hospitals or GPs for laboratory testing. 

Partnering with Mologic is separate from, and additional to, the announcement made by the Company on April 9 2020 relating to the UK Rapid Test Consortium (RTC), which is to jointly develop and manufacture a Point-of-Care Covid-19 lateral flow antibody test which could be used "at-home" and which will be manufactured in Omega’s Alva facility in Scotland.

Colin King, CEO of Omega said: “We are pleased that Omega has been able to CE-Mark Mologic’s Elisa antibody test and it is testimony to the teams within both companies that we have reached this milestone in such a short timescale.”

Shares were up 38.16% to 52.5p, up 14.5p.