UK Government announces plan to utilise Nanopore’s test technology to battle Covid-19

The UK government revealed yesterday it would be using Oxford Nanopore Technology Ltd’s LamPORE test assays to help battle COVID 19, with it’s super-fast test turnaround time planning to help complete more tests per day for the virus.

The rapid test kits are being adopted by the department of health to manage the amount of Covid-19 cases within the UK, along with helping to contain the virus. An initial 450k test kits will be made available across the country in multiple NHS testing laboratories.

Nanopore has been working within nanopore science and molecular biology since 2005 and has offices in Oxford, New York, San Francisco, Shanghai, Singapore, Cambridge among other cities. Their LamPORE test assay was developed only this year as a direct result of the COVID 19 pandemic to increase Coronavirus testing speed. The low cost and highly scalable assay technology can deliver test results in under two hours.

After a sample is collected by swab, RNA is extracted from the sample. Loop-mediated isothermal amplification is then used to identify SARS CoV-2 within samples. The samples are then prepared for sequencing using Nanopore's efficient sequencing technology to determine whether a sample is Covid-19 positive or negative.

Due to LamPORE’s efficiency and effectiveness in coronavirus testing, the UK government decided to utilise Nanopore’s technology to improve the quality and pace of testing for the virus countrywide.

The turnaround speed of the technology along with its ease of use will mean testing will be able to take place in airports, offices, schools, and other public places to ensure a greater proportion of the population have access to a test.

The UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock said 'These technologies which deliver these rapid turnaround tests will mean we can expand testing capacity further, and into settings where - for instance, in schools we currently have survey testing, we have some testing - that would be able to be expanded, but also looking across the community where we want to test people who don’t have symptoms, to find out where the virus is.'

The adoption of LamPORE technology by a national government is a triumph for Nanopore. As a result of this announcement, shares in IP group, which owns 15.8% of Nanopore, have increased from 66.4 GBX from the 3rd of August 2020 at 16:30 to 76 GBX on the 4th at 13:04. Widespread news coverage has also benefitted the tech company, along with its CEO and co-founder Gordon Sanghera.

Sanghera himself said ‘We are honoured to be playing a part in fighting Covid-19 in the UK, and preparing the country for the winter virus season. Ever since we founded Oxford Nanopore, our mission has been to create disruptive, high-performance technology that has a profound, positive impact on society.’

With the use of the LamPORE test assay being implemented effectively across the UK, testing will be able to be executed at a faster rate, meaning more positive results can be detected over a period of time and therefore more lives can be saved. This could potentially lead to more countries utilising the technology to help increase the speed of testing around the world.