By Kristy Dorsey
Omega Diagnostics has signed a supply agreement for one line of its Covid testing kits in a deal that will use some manufacturing capacity at its headquarters in Alva while it awaits a long-overdue decision on the UK Government’s testing requirements.
The agreement as exclusive supplier of its professional-use lateral flow test (LFT) to Liverpool-based DAM Health, a provider of “fit to fly” certification services, has led to an initial purchase order worth more than £750,000. DAM currently uses about 200,000 tests per month within its network of more than 100 clinics across the UK and Europe.
This could be expanded to include an at-home version of the antigen LFT, which determines whether someone is currently infected with the virus. An application to sell it as a self-testing kit was filed in August, with a decision expected by the end of this year.
READ MORE: Omega Diagnostics files for European approval of self-testing Covid-19 kits
The agreement might also be extended to include the sale by DAM of Omega’s Food Detective product, which detects a variety of food allergies. There is a further provision to expand geographically beyond Europe as DAM grows its international network.
In a statement, Omega said the agreement will allow it to honour its existing commitments to the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), which in February selected Omega as one of a handful of manufacturers to supply the Government with Covid test kits.
By the end of April, Omega was due to have capacity in place to produce up to two million tests per week on behalf of the Government. However, the DHSC has yet to decide on which test it favours, one of which was developed by Bedford-based Mologic, a partner of Omega’s in a separate Covid test manufacturing agreement.
READ MORE: Omega shares fall on Mologic test woes
Omega chief executive Colin King said the deal with DAM Health was the result of an active search for commercial partners in which it was supported by Lansdown Strategic Capital.
“Reaching a commercial agreement with a leading and fast-growing testing provider is a major milestone for the company in bringing our gold-standard test to market and we look forward to working collaboratively with DAM Health and are hopeful that this partnership can be broadened to cover more of Omega’s products, not just in the Covid space,” he added.
Share in Omega, which reached highs of more than 100p in October 2020, closed 2p higher yesterday at 51.5p.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here