Cytiva strengthens support to diagnostics industry with new labs, services and supply chain enhancements

• Now offering Cytiva Diagnostic Services, new diagnostic test development and support service virtually or at new lab, for point-of-care diagnostic developers to increase speed to market of new tests.
• Supply chain enhancements include increasing inventory, investing in plants and expanding number of partner organizations.

AMERSHAM, United Kingdom, Oct. 27, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Cytiva launches new services for diagnostic developers and will establish new labs to meet the future needs of the industry. Cytiva Diagnostic Services will help developers bring point-of-care diagnostic tests to market quicker through infrastructure, expertise and consultation for point of care immunoassay development. A multi-million dollar investment will be used partly to expand chemistry labs in Cardiff, Wales as well as establishing design labs in Germany and China.

Cytiva has had a critical role working with diagnostic developers during the COVID-19 pandemic. In total, over 50 million people have been PCR tested using components or services from Cytiva. Diagnostic components, such as nitrocellulose membranes, are used in 18 immunoassay-based COVID-19 tests available today.

Investment in its molecular diagnostic component lab in Wales means more work with companies such as genedrive, a molecular diagnostics company. David Budd, CEO genedrive says, "Our R&D teams worked effectively together in combining their expertise, experience, and technologies to deliver innovative PCR Kits based on Cytiva's 'Ready-to-Go' formulations. The speed at which we were able to move together was facilitated by many previous years of cooperative working."

The new services will follow the same collaborative approach as Cytiva's work with Avacta. The companies are co-developing a rapid antigen test strip for COVID-19 to provide a result in minutes using patient saliva.

Alastair Smith, CEO of Avacta, comments: "Cytiva has been a key partner in developing a rapid coronavirus antigen test and we continue to work closely with them, and our manufacturing partners, to finalise the test in a format suitable for massively scaled-up manufacturing processes to meet the anticipated demand."

The new services will include training, test optimization expertise and contract development and can be hosted virtually or in person at Cytiva's new lab in Dassel, Germany. Another lab for diagnostics development work is being planned for China in 2021. These projects form part of Cytiva's 500 million USD investment over five years to expand manufacturing capacity.

Emmanuel Abate, Vice President, Genomics and Cellular Research at Cytiva, says: "We have seen a lot of new companies entering the field this year to address the challenges of the pandemic. As a diagnostic component provider with over 30 years' experience, we have a key role supporting the industry through the next series of challenges with our manufacturing and design expertise."

Join Cytiva's Diagnostics Virtual Summit
On Oct 28 Cytiva is hosting a thought-provoking and interactive virtual summit showcasing recently launched technologies, products and solutions supporting the development of diagnostics. Register here for the live event or access the playback (available for 12 months).

About Cytiva
Cytiva is a global life sciences leader with more than 7,000 associates across 40 countries dedicated to advancing and accelerating therapeutics. As a trusted partner to customers that range in scale and scope, Cytiva brings speed, efficiency and capacity to research and manufacturing workflows, enabling the development, manufacture and delivery of transformative medicines to patients.