Abbott wins FDA approval of $5, 15-minute COVID test

Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT) +6.5% after-hours following news that the FDA granted emergency use authorization for the company’s 15-minute COVID-19 test that will be priced at just $5.

Abbott says BinaxNOW works without relying on lab equipment – at a time when labs can take as long as two weeks to produce results – and uses a nasal swab and a small reactive card that can be administered by a range of healthcare workers, including pharmacists.

The company plans to ship “tens of millions’ of test in September, ramping to 50M tests per month by the end of October.

The new test “can be used at a massive scale to help overcome the current waiting game for test results,” John Hackett, divisional VP of applied research and technology at Abbott Diagnostics, tells Bloomberg.

https://seekingalpha.com/news/3609206-abbott-wins-fda-approval-of-5-15-minute-covid-test