Coronavirus: a Breton company launches its rapid serological test

A coronavirus test with a single drop of blood and the known result in 15 minutes: companies from all over the world have entered the race to develop a rapid serological test. Among them, NG Biotech, in Guipry (35), which announces the marketing of its kit.

The test marketed by NG Biotech is “all-in-one” and single-use: it integrates a lancing device and a capillary blood collector.

How to know if one has been contaminated by the coronavirus, in the past, with few or no symptoms? And that one is, in fact, immune, at least for a while? PCR tests, which are used today in France, do not allow this: thanks to a swab inserted in the nose, they indicate whether a patient is infected at the time they are carried out. This is where serological tests come in: they aim to detect antibodies to determine, afterwards, whether an individual has been in contact with the virus and whether he or she has adequate immune defences.

In the very complex operation of deconfinement that awaits France on a still unknown horizon, these blood tests promise to be of prime importance: they will make it possible to refine the total number of infected people, including asymptomatic cases. To know the areas where the virus is still prowling around. To let people go to work without fearing for their health. The downside, however, is that they will not indicate whether a person is still contagious. That’s where clinical examinations will be necessary.

Chinese and American competition

This titanic market for serological tests is opening up and companies from all over the world are in the starting blocks: the American Abbott, the Finnish Mobidiag, the Chinese Innovita. In France, the Alsatian Biosynex is also ready to draw. Facing them is a small Breton company with 40 employees created in 2012, based in Guipry, halfway between Rennes and Redon. NG Biotech, specialized in rapid diagnostic tests, officially launched its product this Tuesday. Without complex. “We are the only ones to present a fully integrated tool, we pushed the ease of use to the extreme,” says Dr. Alain Calvo, director of development. The test integrates a lancing device and a blood collector and makes it possible to know the evolution of the disease, from its active phase to that of cure, thanks to the types of antibodies detected.

Passed through several stages of evaluation, from the AP-HP emergencies to the Pasteur Institute, it would guarantee, according to Alain Calvo, “100% reliability”. With the CE standard marking in its pocket, NG Biotech has its entries at the Ministry of Health and “has already received a first order for a public player”. But does not wish to communicate its name.

Reserved for health professionals

From Tuesday, will it be possible to buy the product in pharmacies? No, answers Alain Calvo: “Our strategy is clear, we want to give this type of test to the French medical profession very quickly so that it has a new tool at its disposal,” he says. Self-testing by ordinary people “is still too premature”.

Based in Guipry, between Rennes and Redon, the company NG Biotech currently has around 40 employees. It hopes to double its workforce in the coming weeks.

NG Biotech is thinking big: from a production of 50,000 to 70,000 tests in April, it hopes to reach one million in July. To do this, around 40 people will be hired and the company’s walls will have to be pushed. The goal: to continue to produce in Brittany. And Alain Calvo to tackle his future competitors: “I am not sure that the companies which will arrive on the French market will have a production capacity on French soil alone…”.