Abbott Laboratories has announced that it has obtained an FDA Emergency Use Authorization for its molecular point-of-care trial, ID NOW COVID-19, for the identification and testing of novel coronavirus. The stock price of the firm increased 6.5 percent to close at $79.34 Tuesday, after the news.
The COVID-19 test, the fastest molecular point-of-care test known to date, runs on Abbott's ID NOW platform and provides quicker results. This is notably the second quick molecular point-of-care coronavirus test to be obtained by the EUA. For another such study, Danaher (DHR) obtained the EUA to detect the SARS-CoV-2 virus in 45 minutes.
The device is a nasal swab check running on Abbott's NOW platform point-of-care ID. The ID NOW is a compact instrument, which, according to press reports, "brings rapid research to the front lines." The company plans to produce more than 5 million tests a month while delivering 50,000 tests a day.
Abbott Laboratories stock sat out Friday morning at $74.58 per share. The company's stock price opened Monday at $82.86, after the news made its rounds over the weekend.
Abbott Laboratories tends to be a better bet in the current crisis compared to Medtronic MDT, based on historical results. The latest crisis with the coronavirus is expected to affect the business of medical instruments on two fronts: Disruptions to the supply chain, and decline in amount of procedures performed. On the other side, businesses that use medical devices are also designing new COVID-19 studies.
Following the introduction of the ID NOW COVID-19 study, Abbott Laboratories is on track to make it available to U.S. emergency care providers by the next week. Notably, the study will be made available where most ID NOW apps are currently in use.
Launched in 2014, the ID NOW Molecular Platform has become the preferred option of molecular point-of-care platform in the United States for influenza A & B, Strep A and RSV monitoring. The platform is commonly favoured by both clinicians and the scientific community, due to its simplicity, accuracy and portability.
According to Abbott chief executive officer Robert Ford in a news release, the pandemic will be fought on many fronts, and a molecular portable test that provides results in minutes "adds to the wide variety of diagnostic tools required to fight this virus." With rapid research on ID NOW, healthcare providers will conduct molecular point-of-care research in outbreak hotspots outside a hospital's conventional four walls, Ford added.
