Oncologica® launches an integrated Test and Sequence platform to combine high capacity PCR testing with SARS-CoV-2 variant identification

The Covid-19 pandemic has had major impact on the social and economic activities of the United Kingdom and has resulted in many deaths. The two major initiatives to address the pandemic has been the establishment of high capacity Covid-19 testing coupled to track and trace and the development of vaccines. Oncologica® has contributed to the pandemic by establishing an integrated Covid-19 test and sequencing platform that is being used to control the spread of the disease across the community and also assess the impact of the vaccines in relation to the different Covid-19 variants.

During the early stage of the pandemic Oncologica® initiated Covid-19 PCR/antigen testing for the protection of vulnerable immunocompromised cancer patients. Since May 2020 Oncologica® has contributed to the national testing efforts as part of the volunteer Covid-19 Testing Network to support the DHSC Covid-19 National Testing Programme covering care homes, local authorities, schools and symptomatic testing across test sites.

Oncologica® has now extended its testing more broadly to support businesses, offices, factories, educational institutions, healthcare and transport (aviation, shipping and railway networks).

To date we have undertaken over 600,000 Covid-19 tests. Our contribution to the UK national efforts to address the Covid-19 pandemic was recently recognised by our shortlisting, as part of the Covid-19 Testing Network [CTN], for the Special Covid-19 UK Response Project Award https://www.pmi.org.uk/awards2020-special-COVID-19-award

Oncologica® has been listed as an approved government provider for general testing and for the test to release scheme. Following the latest Government requirements for international arrivals Oncologica® now provides genomic sequencing of positive cases in compliance with the new guidelines.

To facilitate the release of lockdown, to aid economic recovery and to enable people to travel we have now increased Covid-19 testing capacity to 40,000 tests/day and optimised our testing workflow to provide the rapid reporting of results with a 12 hour turnaround time.