Ex­clu­sive: Eye­ing big Covid-19 test­ing ex­pan­sion, Gink­go rolls out 50M rapid anti­gen di­ag­nos­tics

In what they hope will be a key part of an ex­ten­sive ef­fort to boost Covid-19 test­ing in the US, Gink­go Bioworks is ac­quir­ing and dis­trib­ut­ing 50 mil­lion rapid anti­gen tests that can po­ten­tial­ly be used for virus sur­veil­lance in schools and com­mu­ni­ties and for quick, on the ground di­ag­noses.

The tests, de­vel­oped by SD Biosen­sor, are in line with pro­pos­als from the Rock­e­feller Foun­da­tion and Har­vard epi­demi­ol­o­gists, among oth­ers, to blan­ket the coun­try with fast, low-cost tests. Al­though not yet au­tho­rized in the US, they are a key part of test­ing ef­forts from the Bill and Melin­da Gates Foun­da­tion, who an­nounced plans last month to dis­trib­ute 120 mil­lion of them in low and mid­dle in­come coun­tries. Roche has com­mer­cial­ized the di­ag­nos­tic in Eu­rope.

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