Eurofins Launches New Tests and Massive Capacity for Detecting and Monitoring New Variants of SARS-CoV-2

Eurofins (Luxembourg) has launched various initiatives to support the health authorities’ programs for the detection and monitoring of increasingly diverse SARS-CoV-2 variants.

The potential higher infectivity of some new viral strains underlines the need to identify, trace and track mutations across the complete viral genome. Through Eurofins’ current COVID-19 testing and clinical diagnostics activities globally and its partnerships with leading pharmaceutical and vaccine companies, the Group is able to closely monitor the identification of new variants of SARS-CoV-2.

Eurofins is increasing the capacity for its ARTIC Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) to more than 5,000 full genomes per day. The company has also launched NovaType, a SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR assay, clinically validated for the identification of the B.1.1.7 variant, first identified in the UK, and the B.1.351 variant, first identified in South Africa. The test has a short turn-around time, making it ideal for retesting millions of positive samples to detect if the virus is the B.1.1.7 or B.1.351 variant. NovaType is already available as a Laboratory Developed Test (LDT) in Germany and will shortly be made available to the more than 50 Eurofins laboratories worldwide testing patients for COVID-19.

NovaType is being made available to health authorities in a number of European countries for trial and potential inclusion in their monitoring programs in response to these new variants. The NovaType assay will also be launched as a Research Use Only (RUO) kit in Europe by the end of January 2021. Eurofins intends to add new detection capabilities to NovaType as additional variants appear. Additionally, the Eurofins-Viracor SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR diagnostic test maintains very high sensitivity in the detection of variants such as B.1.1.7 and B.1.351.

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