Chinese firms are scrambling to meet the global demand for coronavirus testing kits even as domestic demand dries up, but its manufacturing juggernaut cannot make enough...
Finbarr Bermingham, Sidney Leng and Echo Xie
As the horror of the coronavirus outbreak in China was unfolding over Janary’s Lunar New Year holiday, a group of technicians were holed up in a Nanjing facilty with a supply of instant noodles and a brief to develop testing kits for diagnosing the virus.
Already at that point, the coronavirus had ripped through the city of Wuhan and was spreading rapidly around China. A handful of diagnostic tests had been approved by central government, but hundreds of firms around the country were still scrambling to develop new ones.
"We have so many orders now ... are considering working 24 hours a day"
ZHANG SHUWEN, NANJING LIMING BIO-PRODUCTS
"I did not think about applying for approvals in China," said Zhang Shuwen, of Nanjing Liming Bio-Products. "The application takes too much time. When I finally get the approvals, the outbreak might already be finished."
Instead, Zhang and the company he founded are part of a legion of Chinese exporters selling test kits to the rest of the world as the pandemic spreads outside China, where the outbreak is now increasingly under control, leading to a fall in domestic demand.
In February, he applied to sell four testing products in the European Union, receiving CE accreditation in March, meaning they complied with EU health, safety and environmental standards.
Now, Zhang has an order book brimming with clients from Italy, Spain, Austria, Hungary, France, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Japan, and South Korea.
"We have so many orders now that we are working until 9pm, seven days a week. We are considering working 24 hours a day, asking workers to take three shifts every day,” Zhang said.
It is estimated that more than 3 billion people are now on lock down across the world, with the global death toll from coronavirus surpassing 30,000. Infection hotbeds have exploded across Europe and the United States, with the epicentre shifting from Wuhan in central China to Italy, then Spain and now New York. The chronic shortage of testing equipment means that rather than being diagnosed, potential patients seen as “low risk” are being asked to stay home.
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Huaxi Securities, a Chinese investment firm, last week estimated global demand for test kits at up to 700,000 units per day, but given that the lack of tests has still resulted in almost half of the planet implementing draconian lockdowns, this figure seems conservative. And given the fear over virus carriers who do not show symptoms, in an ideal world, everyone would be tested, and probably more than once.
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Zhang in Nanjing has capacity to make 30,000 PCR testing kits per day, but plans to buy two more machines to boost it to 100,000. But export logistics are complex, he said. "No more than five companies in China can sell PCR test kits overseas because the transport needs an environment at minus 20 degrees Celsius (68 degrees Fahrenheit)," Zhang said. "If companies asked cold chain logistics to transport, the fee is even higher than the goods they can sell." European and American firms have generally dominated the world’s diagnostic equipment market, but now China has become a vital hub for supplies. At a time of such shortages, however, the case in Spain confirms that amid the urgent scramble for medical commodities which have become as scarce and valuable as gold dust this year, the buyer should always beware.
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Reference:
https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3077314/coronavirus-china-ramps-covid-19-test-kit-exports-amid-global
Besides,according to corresponding requirements of FDA, Limingbio has also fiished the performance validation of COVID-2019 IgM/IgG detecting products (SARS-COV-2 IgG/IgM Antibody Rapid Test kit),which is permitted to sell to CLIA labs in the U.S. as well.
And the products mentioned above are also CE marked.
Post time: Aug-19-2020
