The Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche plans to deliver a new test for antibodies to the novel coronavirus to healthcare facilities in Germany in May. This was agreed by Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn (CDU) and the company, according to the minister.
“The new test is an important new landmark in the fight against the virus,” Spahn said. Three million tests were to be delivered in May, and five million tests were agreed for delivery to Germany in the coming months.
“Antibody tests help us know who has been through a corona infection. This is how we gain insight into the actual outbreak,” Spahn said. As soon as there is reliable knowledge of possible immunity after the infection has been carried out, the tests would become even more important.
However, the reliability of antibody testing methods is controversial. It is also not yet properly established whether immunity actually exists after a Covid-19 disease. The WHO has therefore recently warned against so-called immunity passports.
Hundreds of millions of euros for the Penzberg site
Roche says it has received emergency approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the test. According to a spokesman, this is valid for all countries that accept the CE marking for products. These include all countries within the European Union.
According to the company, the test has a sensitivity of 100 percent and a specificity of 99.8 percent. The former indicates the percentage of people who are actually diagnosed with the infection. The latter indicates how many healthy people are actually recognized as healthy by the test. Christoph Franz, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Roche, spoke of a completely “new level of quality”.
In order to expand the production capacity for the new antibody test, Roche intends to expand its biochemical plants in Penzberg, Bavaria, for around 170 million euros. Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder even spoke of 400 million euros in a press conference.
