Canada Authorizes COVID-19 Diagnostic Assay That Boosts Virus Testing Efficiency

Thermo Fisher Scientific is giving a significant boost to laboratories’ COVID-19 testing capabilities.

The company received Health Canada authorization for its CE-IVD-Marked, Applied Biosystems TaqPath COVID-19 HT Kit, which is compatible with its Amplitude platform. The high-throughput solution enables clinical and public health laboratories to efficiently test up to 8,000 COVID-19 samples daily with fewer staffing requirements and a reliable supply of kits, reagents and consumables.

“Accurate and reliable testing that can scale is essential in addressing the spread of any disease, especially COVID-19,” said Mark Smedley, president of the genetic sciences business of Thermo Fisher Scientific. “The Amplitude platform embodies our goal of empowering public health and clinical lab professionals to generate accurate results at higher volumes and use them to make informed health care decisions that lead to the management of a pandemic that is still raging around the world.”
 
The highly automated Amplitude platform is a molecular diagnostic system that allows labs to increase their COVID-19 testing capacity by combining Thermo Fisher’s extraction and real-time PCR instruments with liquid handling products from Tecan Group. The system leverages a high-throughput version of Thermo Fisher’s TaqPath COVID-19 CE-IVD RT-PCR Kit, which received CE-IVD Mark in March 2020.

Thermo Fisher has secured a contract with a large provincial authority in Canada for Amplitude systems to help fight the pandemic.
 
With the Amplitude platform, customers receive a reliable supply agreement and up-front monthly delivery of reagents to ensure that COVID-19 testing needs are met. Thermo Fisher now has capacity to produce more than 20 million tests per week and continues to work closely with laboratories, governments, academic institutions and other stakeholders to ensure each has a reliable supply of tests and materials.