York based rapid test developer and manufacturer, Abingdon Health, has announced its membership of the consortium of top UK diagnostic companies to deliver a new COVID-19 antibody rapid test.

lateral flow specialist developing a rapid antibody testThe UK Rapid Test Consortium (UK-RTC), which comprises the University of Oxford, Abingdon Health, Omega Diagnostics, BBI Solutions and CIGA Healthcare, has been launched to develop and manufacture millions of new COVID-19 antibody tests to determine someone’s immunity after contracting the virus.

UK-RTC was formed in response to UK Government’s request to develop a ‘home-grown test’ following validation of existing antibody tests that ‘have not proven accurate enough’.

The UK Government is scaling-up COVID-19 testing as part of its National Testing Strategy and consortiums such as UK-RTC will play an important role in their ambition for accurate testing, focusing on frontline and essential workers before deploying the tests to the wider population.

UK-RTC will utilise Abingdon Health’s extensive rapid test development and manufacturing expertise. Abingdon Health is head-quartered at the York Biotech Campus (formerly National Innovation Campus).

Chris Yates, CEO of Abingdon Health, commented:

“We are delighted to be involved in this important initiative. We have an excellent team of scientists with many years’ experience in both rapid test development and large-scale manufacture. We are working hard to bring something with the required performance through to be validated via an accelerated development programme. Partnering with others in the consortium means we will be able to scale the product to the desired volume quickly following successful development and we look forward to working with our partners to achieve this.”

Read the UK Government’s official statement here.