Vatic announces manufacturing partnership with Abingdon Health

04 October 2021

Abingdon Health plc (“Abingdon Health”), a leading international developer and manufacturer of high quality and effective rapid tests, and Vatic Health Limited (“Vatic”), a UK born health-tech company today announce that they have signed a manufacturing and supply agreement for the Vatic KnowNow™ rapid antigen test, used to detect active SARS CoV-2 in a saliva swab.

The innovative science of Vatic’s KnowNow Test combined with one of the largest manufacturers of lateral flow tests in Europe is a powerful and important partnership. providing a unique infectiousness test that is vital in the UK and globally.

Under the terms of the agreement, the test will be manufactured by Abingdon Health using its larger manufacturing capacity. This will provide Vatic with immediate access to high volume manufacturing and distribution, enabling the company to meet the expected demand for its antigen test in the UK and overseas.

This strategic partnership offers the potential for 70-100 million UK invented and manufactured covid tests per year. The test is registered in the UK and EU already, and a clinical trial is ethically approved and ready to begin in the US to seek emergency use authorisation there, with multiple other geographies in the export pipeline across Asia, Africa and South America.

Vatic has developed a new class of covid test that is the most specific on the market (99.9% Specificity). This gives it a very low rate of false positives – 0 in their clinical studies so far. This makes KnowNow the perfect tool for the new world where screening is key and the majority of test subjects will be negative. Where most people are negative, even a low incidence of false positives can create large-scale disruption as people are told to isolate when they aren’t actually infectious. KnowNow enables testing to keep people safe, whilst minimising disruption, increasing trust and keeping society and the economy open.

KnowNow Tests are also purposefully designed to be resistant to mutations, which are increasing exponentially in frequency over time, so it is future proofed to keep on working. As a final bonus, the test uses a saliva swab, which is more like brushing your teeth than sticking something up your nose or down your throat, music to the ears of many!

The KnowNow Test (www.knownow.com) is an easy-to-use saliva COVID-19 Spike Test which is the only test that identifies the virus by mimicking the surface of a human cell. This means the test only identifies “infectious” or “active” copies of the virus which are capable of cell entry and thereby infect a human cell. Other tests, such as PCR and lateral flow antigen tests, can pick up harmless viral fragments with the potential for users to test positive after the end of the window during which they are infectious. Furthermore, the unique detection mechanism of the KnowNow Test has been purposefully designed from the ground up to be far more robust to mutation than traditional antigen tests, making it future proofed for ongoing COVID-19 testing.

KnowNow is the most specific COVID-19 assay that exists with zero false positives in studies (99.9% specificity, compared against 99.7% for Innova). The unique technology is CE Marked and MHRA registered for professional use across the UK and the EU and Vatic is currently working with retail, transport, manufacturing and hospitality companies to deploy its technology.

Chris Yates, Chief Executive Officer of Abingdon Health, commented: “We are delighted to be working with Vatic on the technology transfer of their cutting edge COVID-19 test into Abingdon Health and to have secured this long-term manufacturing arrangement. Having completed the first phase of the expansion of our manufacturing capacity, we are now at the forefront of COVID-19 rapid testing and part of the UK’s diagnostic manufacturing capacity. The agreement with Vatic is testament of our ability to provide high-quality services for our partners, whether for COVID-19 tests or non-COVID assays.”

Alex Sheppard, co-founder of Vatic, said: “We are now moving into a new phase where the pandemic as we knew it is over, and now we are having to deal with disruption as we learn to live with the virus. Unfortunately with the rise of several mutations across the world, vaccinations alone are not the total solution. Regular testing technologies are needed to help reduce the overall spread and keep the economy back up and running. Our unique test technology, combined with a UK-based manufacturing roll-out is a major milestone in testing. With the potential to manufacture two million tests per month initially, and significantly more beyond this as we scale, this deal will help us ensure the hard-fought wins around societal reopening are retained and we can really make a global impact. COVID-19 testing will remain alongside booster vaccinations, a key pillar of our collective biosecurity.”

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