Abbott’s Five-Minute Virus Testing Kit
Test. Test. Test. It’s the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) new motto, and the reason Singapore, South Korea, and Germany have been able to show this coronavirus who’s boss.
Confirm your infected, lock them away, and even if some spreaders slip through the net, their victims can test positive and nip the transition chain in the bud before hospitals get overwhelmed. It’s all about mass-testing mixed with less positive results, say the epidemiologists. The logic checks out!
We’re all doing our part. We’re closing borders, sacrificing the economy, and keeping two-meters distance. However, the testing has proved a chink in our armor. We don’t have enough kits, nor enough knowledge nomads to interpret saliva samples. So, if you’re not vulnerable, rich, or famous, you don’t get tested, and if you don’t get tested it, “it doesn’t exist.”
Step in, Abbott Laboratories. Heavily followed and 59% a winning trade in the Invstr community, this MedTech maker has developed a game-changer. The ‘ID NOW Platform’ is a toaster-size box that takes saliva and searches it for coronavirus genome fragments. It has the rubber stamp from the US Food and Drug Authority (FDA), too, notoriously hard to get.
We’re talking a million tests per day beginning April, from almost anywhere. The results take five minutes to show up, thirteen to be totally sure, and the Trump Administration is working on a roll-out already. Competitor Henry Schein has test kits that can do faster testing, but the volume isn’t there. That’s why with thousands of cases reported every day, this will be a team effort!
Investors know there are only two ways out of this mess, mass immunity or a vaccine. Gilead Sciences has long been the stock to own if you’re betting on a cure, but this new testing capacity might help flatten the curve and take the weight off a vaccine. That’s good for the world but bad for Gilead. Abbott and Schein, however, might only be getting started!
