U.S. strikes $230 million deal for over-the-counter Covid tests

U.S. strikes $230 million deal for over-the-counter Covid tests "Making easier-to-use tests available to every American is a high priority with obvious benefits," White House Covid-19 adviser Andy Slavitt told reporters NBC News

The Biden administration announced a $230 million deal to ramp up production of the country's first over-the-counter, at-home Covid-19 test.

"These are over-the-counter, self-performed test kits that can detect Covid with roughly 95 percent accuracy within 15 minutes," Andy Slavitt, the White House senior adviser for Covid-19 response, told reporters on Monday.

The Food and Drug Administration granted an emergency use authorization in December for Ellume's tests, which are expected to cost about $30 each.

"Ellume has been ramping up manufacturing and will ship 100,000 test kits per month to the U.S. from February through July," Slavitt said. "That’s good, but it’s obviously not where we will need to be."

The $230 million deal the departments of Defense and Health and Human Services struck with Ellume will allow the company "to scale the manufacturing base and capacity of this easy-to-use test," Slavitt said. "Thanks to this contract, they’ll be able to scale the production to manufacture over 19 million test kits per month by the end of this year, 8.5 million of which are guaranteed to the U.S. government."

The test by Ellume, an Australian digital diagnostics company, does not require sending samples to a lab, is similar to how at-home pregnancy tests work, and is "appropriate for people ages 2 and older," Slavitt said.

He said the test uses a "mid-turbinate nasal swab," which is less invasive than the original deep nasal swabs used at the beginning of the outbreak. ...