Benzinga | Sep 28, 2020 06:13PM EDT

Quidel Issues Statement On Trump Announcement Of Coronavirus Testing Strategy

"Quidel Corporation welcomes President Trump's announcement that the Administration will direct millions of Abbott's visually read antigen tests for use in safeguarding K-12 school children as they return to America's classrooms. In this pandemic, the medical diagnostics industry is competing against COVID-19, not among companies. The need for testing seems virtually unlimited at this point in time. So, while Quidel continues our aggressive efforts to ramp production of our own rapid antigen tests, we appreciate the contributions of others and the leadership of the Trump Administration in clarifying how the special needs of school children will be addressed. Today's announcement gives us greater certainty in confirming our commitments to existing customers and greater flexibility to serve additional markets as our production capacity expands.

"Quidel recently doubled our production of Sofia(r) rapid antigen tests to the current rate of approximately two million tests per week. We are constructing additional production lines that will more than double our current capacity once again. Our goal is to reach a run-rate of over 220 million tests per year by July of 2021.

"We are proud of the commitment demonstrated by our Quidel team since the first day we started developing our PCR and antigen tests for COVID-19. Our people have been so dedicated and their ability to speed and scale production has been extraordinary. It is noteworthy that all of Quidel's Sofia(r) SARS Antigen test kits are made in America -- at our manufacturing facility near our corporate headquarters in San Diego."