MedAccess welcomes inclusion of COVID-19 assay in Hologic’s Global Access Initiative

MedAccess has welcomed Hologic’s decision to make its Aptima® SARS-CoV-2 Assay available to low- and middle-income countries under the terms of the Global Access Initiative.

The decision means that countries using Hologic’s Panther^® platform will immediately be able to access the assay at an all-inclusive price of $12 per test. This is the same price that Hologic offers for HIV and viral hepatitis viral load tests and HPV diagnostic tests.

MedAccess is a partner in the Global Access Initiative, having provided a volume guarantee to Hologic in 2018. Since the launch of the guarantee, 13 African countries have installed Panther^® machines, over 445,000 people have benefitted from improved access to viral load testing, and procurers have saved more than US$ 18 million.

“Access to COVID-19 testing is a vital component of countries’ strategies to control the pandemic and protect their citizens,” said Hema Srinivasan, Chief Access Officer at MedAccess. “We welcome Hologic’s decision to make its COVID-19 assay available under the terms of the Global Access Initiative. As more vaccine doses reach the people who need them, testing remains crucial for communities to protect those who are waiting to be immunised and is an important line of defence against the emergence of new variants.”

Under the terms of MedAccess’ volume guarantee with Hologic, the company agreed to an all-inclusive pricing structure. This means that countries have full visibility on all costs including consumables, service, and maintenance.

The Panther^® platform enables laboratories to significantly increase the number of tests processed per day. Rather than waiting until a batch is processed, technicians can add new samples at any time, meaning the machines have high throughput.