Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield is waiving all out of pocket expenses
for coronavirus testing as two commercial diagnostic laboratories with
extensive networks in Western Pennsylvania roll out tests for the virus
that causes COVID-19.
Highmark is waiving co-pays and deductibles for its fully insured,
Medicare Advantage and Affordable Care Act plan members. Employers with
self-insured plans, which comprises more than half of Highmark’s insured
population, will be able to opt out of the waiver.
Neither UPMC nor UPMC Health Plan officials were available Friday.
UPMC officials said Tuesday they were developing their own coronavirus
test.
No cases of COVID-19 have yet been confirmed in Highmark’s primary
service area of Pennsylvania, Delaware and West Virginia as testing for
the new coronavirus begins in Pittsburgh and across the country by
Monday.
Burlington, N.C.-based LabCorp said its test for the new coronavirus
would be available starting late Thursday. The test will detect the
presence of the virus that causes the COVID-19 disease.
“We have been intensely focused on making testing for COVID-19
available as soon as possible, working with the government and others to
address this public health crisis,” LabCorp President and CEO Adam H.
Schechter said in a prepared statement.
Also Thursday, Secaucus, N.J.-based Quest Diagnostics Inc. said it
would roll out a nationwide test for the new coronavirus starting
Monday. LabCorp and Quest both have extensive operations in Western
Pennsylvania, but neither company will collect specimens for testing,
which is usually done with swabs in the back of the nose and throat.
Instead, specimens will be collected by the patient’s physician and forwarded to labs for analysis.
The Pennsylvania Department of Health and the federal Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta have also been doing testing
for the coronavirus, but the entry of commercial labs into the market is
expected to ramp up the number of tests that can be performed while
cutting turnaround time.
LabCorp says its results will be available in three to four days. Quest officials were unavailable Friday.
Health insurer Cigna Corp. announced Thursday that it was waiving all
out of pocket expenses for coronavirus testing for its fully insured
plan members. Most employers are self-insured so they dictate the terms
of their coverage.
Other major insurers cover the tests. Highmark covers both the
LabCorp and Quest tests; UPMC Health Plan only covers ones done by
Quest.
Quest has had a joint venture with UPMC for lab services in the
greater Pittsburgh area for 22 years. UPMC controls 49% of the venture,
Quest 51%.
A doctor’s order is needed before testing.
California, New York and Washington states have ordered insurers to
waive all co-pays and deductibles for the test and Pennsylvania has been
weighing a similar move in recent days, according to one person who was
familiar with the deliberations. State Insurance Department officials
were unavailable early Friday.
Other laboratories may also soon begin testing. BioReference
Laboratories Inc. said it would begin testing for coronavirus the week
of March 9, but the Elmwood Park, N.J.-based company does not have labs
in Pennsylvania.
On Saturday, the Food & Drug Administration gave approval for 300
to 400 academic medical center laboratories nationwide to develop their
own tests to identify the new coronavirus. At a news conference
Tuesday, UPMC said it was working to develop its own test, but officials
were not available Thursday after announcements by the two private
labs.
The new coronavirus, which spreads through contact with tiny droplets
from an infected person’s cough or sneeze, was first identified in the
Chinese province of Hubei in December. At least 205 cases have been
reported in 17 states, most in California and Washington state.
Two individuals from Wayne and Delaware counties are presumed to have
tested positive for COVID-19, Gov. Tom Wolf announced at a news
conference Friday. Like the two Pittsburgh men
who are self-quarantined in their homes after possible exposure to the
virus on a cruise ship, the Wayne and Delaware individuals were both
staying at home, separated from others.
Quarantines for medical reasons are voluntary, Pennsylvania
Department of Health Secretary Rachel Levine said at the news
conference, which has not raised any compliance issues so far.
“The quarantine is not really an issue,” she said. “People really want to cooperate. Everybody wants to maintain their health.”
Raymond E. Pontzer, a physician and chief of the infectious disease
section at UPMC St. Margaret Hospital in Aspinwall, said he suspects
there are already cases of COVID-19 in the Pittsburgh area, which
testing will detect.
Treatment for COVID-19 is limited to supportive measures, such as
drinking lots of fluids and taking over the counter medications for pain
and fever.
“There is no specific antiviral or antibacterial medication that’s proven effective,” Dr. Pontzer said. https://www.post-gazette.com/business/healthcare-business/2020/03/05/COVID-19-testing-upmc-highmark-coronavirus-quest-diagnostics-labcorp-pittsburgh-insurance/stories/202003050185
Two federal health screeners at Los Angeles International Airport
have tested positive for the coronavirus, according to an email sent to
their colleagues on Friday, which was seen by Reuters.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention employees were
conducting screenings of passengers arriving from overseas, including
from China, and have been directed to self-quarantine until March 17,
the email said.
“At this time, we cannot confirm where these two screeners were
exposed,” said the email, which was sent by a senior CDC official. “Let
us keep our colleagues in our thoughts during this period.”
Sixty people who attended a recent biotech conference in Boston were
rushed to Brigham and Women’s Hospital late Friday for testing for the
coronavirus just hours after it was announced new suspected cases of
COVID-19 originated from the gathering.
“This is a rapidly evolving situation,” Mayor Martin Walsh said at a
crowded press conference in City Hall, joined by Gov. Charlie Baker and a
phalanx of other local and state officials and first-responders.
The officials said a conference by Biogen at the Marriott Long Wharf
downtown last week resulted in five new “presumptive positive” cases of
the coronavirus. Three of those are in Boston and two in Norfolk County.
That brings the total number of presumed coronavirus cases in Massachusetts to eight as of Friday night.
That new count includes five new “presumptive positive” hits from the
Biogen conference — including three sick Bostonians — on top of the
three out-of-towners from the same conference who were reported on
Thursday to have the virus.
These cases are “presumptive” because they’re pending final analysis
by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to confirm that they
have the virus that’s sickened more than 100,000 people around the world
and killed thousands, mostly in China, but causing 14 deaths in the
U.S.
Someone from Tennessee and two Europeans attended the Biogen
conference and then traveled home testing positive on Thursday,
officials said. The five Bay Staters were tested after Biogen identified
them as having close contact with the three sick out-of-towners at the
event, officials said.
Biogen issued a statement Friday night.
“We are actively working with all relevant departments of public
health and hospitals to prioritize the well-being of the people who may
have been exposed to COVID-19.
“We have informed employees who attended the management meeting and
are symptomatic that, if they haven’t already, they will be contacted by
the public health authorities to be tested and they must quarantine
themselves. Additionally, these employees are being asked to isolate
from the people they live with (e.g. family members, loved ones or
roommates) until further notice, and these close contacts must also be
quarantined until further notice.
“For meeting attendees who are not showing symptoms, individuals are
being asked to stay in quarantine until further notice, and the people
they live with should avoid social interaction and work from home.
“All other office-based Biogen employees and contractors in
Massachusetts, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina and Baar,
Switzerland are being asked to work from home until further notice.”
Mere hours after Walsh’s announcement, dozens of Biogen conference attendees headed over to Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
“The Massachusetts Department of Public Health asked Brigham and
Women’s Hospital to assist in testing individuals who attended the
Biogen conference in Boston last week for COVID-19,” the hospital said
in a statement. “We have activated our central ambulatory screening and
testing plan and will test patients outside of the hospital in the
ambulance bay.”
The Brigham continued, “Our Emergency Medicine colleagues will manage
the testing, and individuals will return home to await results. We do
not anticipate an influx of inpatients or any impact to hospital
operations or normal patient activity.”
Before that announcement, Harvard’s school of public health sent an
email around to academic staff saying, “Brigham and Women’s Hospital has
notified Harvard that 60 people from the Marriott Hotel in Boston are
en route to the hospital to be evaluated for the Coronavirus. As a
result, they are closing down Shattuck Street to ensure an orderly
process. BWH has the situation under control, but please avoid that area
for the rest of the day.”
A Marriott manager said that no one from the hotel is among those being taken to the hospital.
The virus continues to shut down major events, including the huge
South By Southwest festival in Austin, Texas. Asked about the Boston
Marathon and the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, Walsh said, “We’re monitoring
the situation day-by-day,” adding the city is “not there yet” on
shutting down the big events.
Physicians are beginning to get more latitude regarding testing
patients for suspected COVID-19, a public health official said Friday.
“The guidance for testing really just shifted this week; in our
market, if we had a suspect case, we had to talk with our Department of
State Health Services of Texas as well as the CDC to determine if
they’re good for testing, and now it’s my understanding that that
testing has gone more into the providers’ hands,” George Roberts Jr.,
president of the National Association of County and City Health
Officials (NACCHO) and CEO of the Northeast Texas Public Health
District, said at a press briefing here.
“If they believe this person needs to be tested for coronavirus, if
there’s some type of travel history or other type of way they may have
contracted the disease, the providers now have the ability to start
doing that.”
“NACCHO members are working with their healthcare providers to make
sure they know what to look for, answering questions, and in some cases,
making sure they have the CDC test kits to be able to test for the
virus,” he added. Until recently, all COVID-19 tests had to be sent to
the CDC in Atlanta, which was very time-consuming, but in Texas, for
example, “test kits are out in public laboratories … Hopefully that will
reduce the time. Confirmatory testing will still have to go to the CDC,
but at least you can have a preliminary diagnosis in a shorter amount
of time.”
In addition, “we’ve inventoried preparedness supplies,” Roberts
continued. “In our market, since we do public health emergency
preparedness in seven counties, we have a warehouse that has a cache of
preparedness supplies and we’ve inventoried our N95 masks, and we
encouraged our local healthcare providers to do the same type of work to
make sure they have the personal protective equipment they need.”
That’s important because the supplies can go fast. “Anecdotally, I
understand in the state of Washington, where they’ve had a lot of cases,
that they really burned through a lot of their PPE [personal protective
equipment] dealing with people,” Roberts said during a
question-and-answer session. “When you’re dealing with respiratory
isolation and you’re wearing the respiratory isolation material and
taking it on and off pretty frequently … I’m concerned that we’re going
to have shortages of that,” he said, noting that part of the $8.3
billion in supplemental coronavirus funding approved this week by
Congress will be for replenishing such supplies.
“Our public health emergency preparedness team is meeting with
hospitals, schools, and government officials to update them and discuss
preparations,” Roberts said. “And just this week, in my locality, we had
a large meeting with our county government, several municipalities,
police chiefs, and fire chiefs, and gave them talking points. We also
met with emergency management officials.”
Local officials also talked about mass gatherings, he continued. “If
this thing gets large, and you have to maybe close your schools, how are
you going to make those decisions? The answer in Tyler, Texas might be
different than Washington D.C. or the state of Washington,” said
Roberts. “Each community is going to have to make those decisions about
when to close the school or when to cancel it.”
“One of my school superintendents in our area said, ‘You don’t close
the schools if you have the flu, do you?’ No, we close it when we have
an attendance rate of 84%,” he added. “That’s when we probably make the
decision to shut down the school for a couple of days and do major
cleaning. That will be up to communities to have those conversations
inside the community and talk about that.”
Decisions about whether to cancel large social events also must be
made case by case, he said. In Harris County, Texas, where Houston is
located, they’ve had no cases of COVID-19 in the community, and
officials had to decide whether to cancel the Houston Rodeo and Stock
Show — “which is a major, major, event in that community, and they were
saying, ‘No, there’s not a reason to do that.'”
When considering these issues, “you have to look at what is the case
on the ground? How many cases of CV [coronavirus] do you have in this
community? Local officials and community leaders, and schools would come
together and have a conference about it … and what is the public saying
about it?” said Roberts. “In Austin, there was a large petition to try
to cancel SXSW [the South by Southwest festival], and Austin said,
‘We’ve got no confirmed cases in our market right now; it’s on.'”
(Austin city officials canceled the festival Friday; SXSW issued a statement
noting that “As recently as Wednesday, Austin Public Health stated that
‘there’s no evidence that closing SXSW or any other gatherings will
make the community safer.’ However, this situation evolved rapidly, and
we honor and respect the City of Austin’s decision.”)
“There has to be a fine balance between protecting the community,
understanding the risk, and mitigating fear,” Roberts said. “What can we
do today? An infectious disease doctor in our area who I have a great
deal of respect for, I asked him, ‘What do you think this is all about?’
He said, ‘George, I think this may be a bad flu season with no vaccines
and no antivirals.’ That’s probably what we’re potentially facing.”
“How do we handle that? Good public health measures,” he said. “I’ve
been in this job 13 years; I lived through H1N1 and lived through the
Ebola scare,” which took place in Roberts’ home state of Texas. “I
guarantee you there was a lot of fear about that, but we lived through
that, and how did we do that? We didn’t have an Ebola vaccine, and when
we started H1N1, we didn’t have an H1N1 vaccine, so we did that with
public health measures — washing your hands, covering your cough,
staying home when you’re sick, cleaning surfaces — just taking some
commonsense solutions to this whole thing.” https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19/85295
Virginia lawmakers have passed a bill that will force insurers to cap insulin costs at $50 a month, sending the bill to Gov. Ralph Northam’s (D) desk for signature.
The Virginia General Assembly passed the bill, which will create the
lowest insulin cap in the nation, 88-4 after it was sent back with
amendments from the state Senate. The Virginia Mercury was
the first to report the bill’s passage. According to the outlet, the
bill was supported by the Medical Society of Virginia and the American
Association of Retired Persons. Colorado andIllinois are
currently the only states with an insulin cap. Under both Colorado and
Illinois law, insulin costs are capped at $100 per month. Washington has also advanced legislation to cap insulin costs in the state at $100 per month, but it has not yet been sent to Gov. Jay Inslee‘s (D) desk.
The Hill has reached out to Northam’s office for comment.
The bill was proposed by Democratic Rep. Lee Carter, a
self-proclaimed democratic socialist who is the state co-chairman of
Sen. Bernie Sanders‘s (I-Vt.) presidential campaign. He initially proposed the cap be $30 but lawmakers ultimately agreed on $50.
“It’s almost impossible to overstate how big of a deal this is. It’s *HUGE*,” Carter tweeted.
The cost of insulin in the U.S. has been increasing in
recent years, doubling since 2012. People with Type 1 and Type 2
diabetes require the costly drug to control blood sugar levels.
The number of confirmed cases of coronavirus continues to grow in New York.
As of Friday night, the total of confirmed cases in the state had reached 44, while New Jersey confirmed four cases. Gov. Andrew Cuomo
announced 11 new confirmed cases late Friday afternoon. Eight of the
new cases are in Westchester County and three are in Nassau County. A
total of 22 new cases were reported Friday, including the first two in Rockland County.
One new New Jersey case was reported Friday in Camden County. The others are in Bergen County.
There’s a lot of anxiety around the virus as new numbers and
information come in, but there’s solid, practical advice that’s being
made available in schools, offices, and even mass transit. All sorts of
precautions are being taken as part of a new normal.
Crews are scrubbing a local medical clinic after a doctor who works there tested positive for the coronavirus.
In White Plains,
the Maple Medical Group at 30 Davis Avenue is closed and being cleaned
and disinfected after a doctor there tested positive for the
coronavirus. His wife and four children have also tested positive, and
are under self-quarantine. Workers have been tested and they’re
determining which patients need to be contacted.
Precautions are being taken throughout the area in Westchester
County. The Mastercard office building in Purchase closed after being
visited by an employee from Brazil diagnosed with the virus.
Rockland County announced its first cases of the virus.
“We’re here to inform you that we have two cases of coronavirus here
in Rockland County. This is no surprise. This is what we were expecting
for a while now,” said Rockland County Health Commissioner Dr. Patricia
Ruppert.
Dr. Ruppert said they’re doing well at home.
The majority of the New York cases are connected to a 50-year-old attorney from New Rochelle who works in Manhattan, Cuomo said.
“He attended functions at [Young Israel of New Rochelle]. He attended
a bat mitzvah. There were a large number of people in this gathering,
he contacted a large number of people. And we are very exhaustive in the
testing followup,” Cuomo said.
“There may have always been a lot of people walking around with
coronavirus already. There may be a lot of people walking around with
coronavirus today who we don’t know, and who we’ll never know. You may
very well have coronavirus, and you’re walking around, and it then
resolves, and you never even know you had it,” Cuomo said. “People can
have it already. People could’ve had it and it could’ve resolved by now.
People can get it and not know they had it and it can resolve.”
The numbers are rising as more people are being tested, but officials say there’s no reason to panic.
“The number has to go up. The number can’t go down. The number has to
go up, because we are testing people. Because we want to find people
who are testing positive, that’s how you contain it,” Cuomo said.
“I’m urging reality. I’m urging a factual response as opposed to an
emotional response. I’m urging people understand the information and not
the hype. We have more people in this country dying from the flu than
we have dying from the coronavirus,” Cuomo said.
Cuomo again reiterated 80% of those infected will self-resolve, 20%
may get ill and may require hospitalization, and it is most problematic
for senior citizens, people with underlying conditions or compromised
immune systems.
Cuomo pointed out of the 44 positive cases in New York, only five have required hospitalization, and they are all improving.
“This is like a flu on steroids,” Cuomo said. “If you look at the facts, facts dictate calm.”
There are 4,000 people in precautionary quarantine statewide, Cuomo
said, including 2,700 in New York City and 1,000 in Westchester County.
There are 44 people under mandatory quarantine statewide, including
nine in New York City, 33 in Westchester and one in Nassau County.
Friday night, Connecticut’s governor announced that a New York
resident who tested positive for coronavirus works at Danbury Hospital
in Danbury, Connecticut, and Norwalk Hospital in Norwalk, Connecticut.
Hospital officials say she came in contact with a limited number of
patients and some employees between the two hospitals.
“We have one of the great hospital systems in the country and if
anybody’s ready to handle this, it’s Danbury Hospital,” Gov. Ned Lamont
said.
The woman is self-quarantined at her home in Westchester County.
One of the additional cases of coronavirus
is a person in New York City. There are now five total cases in New
York City. The number of people who’ve tested negative is 47, with 40
test results still pending.
Due to the growing concern of community spread, Mayor Bill de Blasio said new strategies are being implemented.
“If you’re well, and you don’t have any symptoms, it’s just go about
the basic precautions. Wash your hands, use alcohol-based hand
sanitizer. Try not to be touching all the parts of your face that allow
in the disease. Avoid handshakes,” de Blasio said. “Be vigilant about
symptoms.”
“If you do have the symptoms: If you have a fever, if you have a
cough, if you have a runny nose, if you have congestion, stay home,” de
Blasio said.
“We’re focused on ensuring that New Yorkers get the message that if
they are sick, if they have symptoms, cold-like symptoms, if they have
traveled, we want them to reach out to the doctors. Even if they haven’t
traveled, we want them to have a lower threshold of staying home when
they are sick,” said Health Commissioner Dr. Oxiris Barbot said. “The
most important thing to note is if you’re sick, stay home. If you’re
sick for more than two days, reach out to your doctor, ask for the test
if you think you’ve got concerns.”
Officials emphasized the illness was airborne and could only be
transmitted through fluids. City officials also said they believe the
virus can only live on most household surfaces for a few minutes.
“Very often, when new viruses are identified, there are studies that
are done in laboratories that don’t look like real-life conditions. So
we think, like other coronaviruses and cold viruses, this one also has a
life on surfaces that is short, not as long as quoted by the WHO” said
Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, deputy commissioner of New York City Department
of Health. “In the laboratory, I can make anything live long in the
laboratory.”
Dr. Daskalakis said most coronavirus can typically live on a surface like an office desk or similar for roughly 2-3 minutes.
“All of our scientific advisors within the Department of Health agree that it’s on the order of minutes,” he said.
De Blasio said the city has ramped up its testing capacity and can now perform hundreds of tests per day.
De Blasio said a Manhattan resident in his 50s tested positive and had a nexus to the New Rochelle case.
“He has mild symptoms at this moment. We are testing his family and
the disease detectives are following up on his contacts,” de Blasio said
in a radio interview.
Two schools in Manhattan have been closed as a precaution. The Spence
School sent a letter to parents saying a family is being monitored
after a parent was exposed to the virus during recent international
travel. The Collegiate School will also be closed because the parent of a
middle school student may have been exposed.
The mayor said he is open to other city schools closing, but in the
meantime, he’s urging parents to keep their kids home if they’re showing
any signs of sickness.
In Lower Manhattan offices at 40 Worth Street street were temporarily
closed after a woman tested positive and is recovering at home. Rabbi Reuven Fink, the rabbi of Young Israel of New Rochelle where the attorney at the center of most cases worships, is also among the more than a dozen patients connected to the lawyer. Rabbi Fink also teaches at Yeshiva University.
“Rabbi Reuven Fink, the Rabbi of the Young Israel of New Rochelle,
who has been in self-quarantine for being in contact with his congregant
who has tested positive has announced to his congregation that he also
tested positive with the coronavirus,” the school posted overnight.
“Rabbi Fink teaches two undergraduate classes at our Washington Heights
campus. We have reached out to his students and recommended as a
precautionary measure to self-quarantine until further notice.
Yeshiva University’s Washington Heights and Midtown campuses have been closed for cleaning. They’re expected to reopen Tuesday. Rabbi Fink wrote an article about being diagnosed with the coronavirus.
“I have the virus and am doing reasonably well… but I must caution
all of you who have had personal contact with me to seek counsel from
your health practitioners as to how to proceed,” he wrote.
“A crisis can bring out the best in people. It is bringing out the best in us,” he added, mentioning neighbors and volunteers shopping for those in need, particularly those who were elderly and sick.
Long Island’s first case was confirmed Thursday in Nassau County.
In a message to students, Uniondale Superintendent Dr. William Lloyd identified the patient as a 42-year-old man from Uniondale. The man is undergoing treatment at NYU Winthrop Hospital in Mineola.
“The District has been in close contact with Nassau County and New
York State health officials, and we have been told that at the current
time, there is no reason to take any additional precautionary or
preventative measures that those we already have in place,” Lloyd said
in a statement.
Also on Long Island, Mercy Medical Center in Rockville Centre
released a statement Friday saying a part-time employee tested positive
He’s a 42-year-old man from Uniondale and had underlying health
conditions. He’s now at NYU Winthrop Hospital in Mineola.
Three new Nassau County cases were identified Friday.
Four other patients are presumed to have tested positive in New Jersey. They’re awaiting official confirmation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
As coronavirus concerns build, many worries now center around testing
to determine how many are infected. There are questions as to how many
test kits are currently available in New York and across the country.
This is especially important since not everyone shows symptoms.
Friday morning, President Donald Trump signed a sweeping spending bill to combat the spread of coronavirus, pumping $8.3 billion into prevention efforts.
“I asked for 2.5 and I got 8.3. I’ll take it,” Trump said.
Money from the bill will also go towards research to produce a vaccine.
It comes a day after Vice President Mike Pence, who is leading the administration’s admitted a shortfall in the number of coronavirus testing kits that are available.
“We don’t have enough tests today to meet what we anticipate will be the demand going forward,” Pence said.
Congress is investigating the slow rollout of the kits, which are
just now reaching labs across the country. There are only 400,000 tests
available nationally.
During a visit to the CDC on Friday, however, the president said test kits are becoming more widely available.
“Anybody that needs a test gets a test,” Trump said.
Cuomo outlined testing priorities in New York going forward:
Those who have been in close proximity to a person who has already tested positive
People who have traveled to a country with level 2 or 3 health notice from the CDC and are experiencing symptoms
People in quarantine and develop symptoms while in quarantine
A seriously ill individual who has not tested positive for other viruses
New York City pharmacies are having trouble keeping up with demand.
“Soon as we get it, it’s off the shelf. So when an order comes in,
within about an hour, it’s all gone. We try to keep it to a limit, three
to a customer,” store owner Leon Tarasenko said.
One New Jersey woman says she went to six stores before finding hand sanitizer.
“When I went to pay, she said $50, and I think that’s disgusting and they’re taking advantage of people right now,” she said.
Online, sales of virus protection products have skyrocketed, up 817%
in the last two months. Amazon says it is blocking or removing thousands
of offers where “bad actors are attempting to artificially raise prices
on basic need products during a global health crisis.”
Now, states and cities are cracking down.
New York City is issuing $500 fines to any stores found price gouging.
The COVID-19 outbreak has proved to be a catalyst for biotechs.
Some issues that were wallowing in penny stock territory have posted
stratospheric gains in the wake of efforts to develop diagnostic tests,
treatments and vaccines to combat the new coronavirus.
Here are four stocks that were moving in Friday’s session on coronavirus-related news:
Spherix said it has executed an exclusive option agreement with the
University of Maryland Baltimore for the technology covered by a patent
entitled “Methods of Treating Coronavirus Infection.”
The invention was made with aid from the National Institute of Health.
Under the option, Spherix has until the end of May 2020 to complete
due diligence and execute a license agreement for commercial
development.
The diagnostic company said its wholly owned subsidiary Enzo Clinical
Labs will begin accepting specimens for COVID-19 testing next week.
The company said it is concurrently applying its technical expertise
in molecular diagnostics to develop a next-gen COVID-19 testing option.
Opko shares are on a two-day rally that was set in motion by a
Thursday announcement from the company that its subsidiary BioReference
Labs will offer a test for COVID-19. Bioreference expects to receive
specimens for testing and will begin providing testing next week, Opko
said.
NanoViricides said that if it is successful in its drug testing, it
can make available kilogram quantities in a few weeks of a drug that
would treat several hundred to a few thousands coronavirus patients.
The company said in its earnings report released in late February
that it intends to do in vitro tests in its lab to assess the safety and
efficacy of drug candidates it has screened for treating COVID-19.
Other COVID-19 levered biotechs such as Cleveland BioLabs, Inc. CBLI 24.57% and Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc INO 43.78% were also seen advancing strongly Friday.
Inovio said earlier this month it will begin human testing of its investigational COVID-19 vaccine as early as April.
Biotech Price Action
At last check:
Spherix shares were soaring 128.17% to $1.62.
Enzo Biochem was jumping 48.87% to $3.30.
Opko was gaining 14.08% to $2.35, adding on to Thursday’s 24% advance.
NanoViricides shares were rallying 39.98% to $11.31.
