Exclusive | Coronavirus: Indicaid’s rapid test kit production to rise fivefold as Phase Scientific goes into overdrive amid Hong Kong’s fifth Covid-19 wave

The biggest customer in the near term is the Hong Kong government, which plans to distribute test kits to the entire population. The city’s Hospital Authority made a bulk order for over one million units last summer for its workers to do weekly tests.

The Kwun Tong-based start-up plans to produce up to 50 million sets of its Indicaid kits per month by June. Production has already been ramped up from less than 2 million sets at the end of last year, to 17 million this month and 30 million targeted for next month.

“With the onset of the fifth wave of infections dominated by the much more transmissive Omicron variant, the Hong Kong government has recognised that PCR tests can no longer be relied upon to meet the city’s diagnostic needs,” chief executive and founder Ricky Chiu Yin-to said in an interview with the South China Morning Post.

The Home Affairs Department bought 300,000 kits from the firm ahead of the Lunar New Year. PSI had to shift some stock originally destined for the US market to meet Hong Kong’s needs, said Chiu, adding the government’s current order placement is “in the magnitude of millions”.