BGI Group, formerly Beijing Genomics Institute, is a Chinese genomics company with headquarters in Yantian District, Shenzhen. The company was originally formed in 1999 as a genetics research center to participate in the Human Genome Project. It also sequences the genomes of other animals, plants and microorganisms.
bioMérieux SA is a French multinational biotechnology company founded and headquartered in Marcy-l'Étoile, France, close to Lyon. bioMérieux is present in 44 countries and serves more than 160 countries through a large network of distributors.
New England Biolabs (NEB) produces and supplies recombinant and native enzyme reagents for the life science research, as well as providing products and services supporting genome editing, synthetic biology and next-generation sequencing. NEB also provides free access to research tools such as REBASE, InBASE, and Polbase.
CSIR Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (CSIR-IGIB) is a scientific research institute devoted primarily to biological research. It is a part of Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), India.
Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) is a viral respiratory infection caused by Middle East respiratory syndrome–related coronavirus (MERS-CoV). Symptoms may range from none, to mild, to severe depending on age and risk level. Typical symptoms include fever, cough, diarrhea, and shortness of breath. The disease is typically more severe in those with other health problems.
DiaSorin is an Italian multinational biotechnology company that produces and markets in vitro diagnostics reagent kits used in immunodiagnostics and molecular diagnostics and since July 2021, it is also active in the Life Science business. The group was founded in 2000 and is headquartered in Saluggia, Italy. Its production is at several plants located in Europe and the United States: Saluggia and Gerenzano (Italy), Dietzenbach (Germany), Stillwater, Minnesota (US), Dartford (UK). Following the acquisition of Luminex, the company acquired five additional production plants located in the United States and in Canada (Toronto). The company is a constituent of the FTSE MIB index.
Cepheid is an American molecular diagnostics company that is a wholly owned subsidiary of Danaher Corporation. Its systems automate traditional nucleic acid tests. The tests can be used to identify and analyze pathogens and genetic disorders. Cepheid sells clinical tests for healthcare-associated infections, infectious diseases, sexual health, oncology and genetics.
Color Health, Inc. is a population health technology company which provides genetic tests and analysis directly to patients as well as through employers. The product focuses on genes that indicate risk for heart disease, cancer, and that affect medication response.
Inovio Pharmaceuticals is an American biotechnology company focused on the discovery, development, and commercialization of synthetic DNA products for treating cancers and infectious diseases. In April 2020, Inovio was among some 100 companies, academic centers, or research organizations developing a vaccine candidate for treating people infected with COVID-19, with more than 170 total vaccine candidates in development.
Primerdesign is a UK-based biotechnology company that designs and sells products for quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR).
COVID-19 testing involves analyzing samples to assess the current or past presence of SARS-CoV-2. The two main types of tests detect either the presence of the virus or antibodies produced in response to infection. Molecular tests for viral presence through its molecular components are used to diagnose individual cases and to allow public health authorities to trace and contain outbreaks. Antibody tests instead show whether someone once had the disease. They are less useful for diagnosing current infections because antibodies may not develop for weeks after infection. It is used to assess disease prevalence, which aids the estimation of the infection fatality rate.
The COVID-19 pandemic in Canada is part of the ongoing worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019. It is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. Most cases over the course of the pandemic have been in Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia and Alberta. Confirmed cases have been reported in all of Canada's provinces and territories.
A coronavirus breathalyzer is a diagnostic medical device enabling the user to test with 90% or greater accuracy the presence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 in an exhaled breath. As of the first half of 2020, the idea of a practical coronavirus breathalyzer was concomitantly developed by unrelated research groups in Australia, Canada, Finland, Germany, Indonesia, Israel, Netherlands, Poland, Singapore, United Kingdom and USA.
COVID-19 testing in the United States can identify whether a person is infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus which causes COVID-19. This helps health professionals ascertain how bad the epidemic is and where it is worst. The accuracy of national statistics on the number of cases and deaths from the outbreak depend on knowing how many people are being tested every day, and how the available tests are being allocated.
Truenat is a chip-based, point-of-care, rapid molecular test for diagnosis of infectious diseases. The technology is based on the Taqman RTPCR chemistry which can be performed on the portable, battery operated Truelab Real Time micro PCR platform. Truenat is developed and manufactured by Goa-based Molbio Diagnostics Private Limited.
The Alpha variant (B.1.1.7) was a SARS-CoV-2 variant of concern. It was estimated to be 40–80% more transmissible than the wild-type SARS-CoV-2. Scientists more widely took note of this variant in early December 2020, when a phylogenetic tree showing viral sequences from Kent, United Kingdom looked unusual.
Curative Inc. is a health care startup company best known for scaling COVID-19 testing and COVID-19 vaccinations during the COVID-19 pandemic. In September 2022, Curative Inc. launched Curative Insurance Company, a new health insurance plan featuring no copays and no deductibles. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, with employees throughout the United States, the company was founded in January 2020 by Fred Turner, Isaac Turner, and Vlad Slepnev to create new diagnostic tests for sepsis and to improve outcomes for sepsis patients. In response to an urgent, unmet need for COVID-19 test development and production in the United States, Curative rapidly shifted focus in March 2020. The company's research team developed a new test for SARS-CoV-2 that utilized oral swabs rather than nasopharyngeal swabs. The Curative test was designed with a scalable process and opportunities to reduce healthcare worker exposure risk, and therefore the amount of personal protective equipment (PPE) used. An independent manufacturing and supply chain model was adopted to avoid competing with existing COVID-19 test companies for limited supplies and laboratory capacity.
COVID-19 rapid antigen tests or RATs, also frequently called COVID-19 lateral flow tests or LFTs, are rapid antigen tests used to detect SARS-CoV-2 infection (COVID-19). They are quick to implement with minimal training, cost a fraction of other forms of COVID-19 testing, and give users a result within 5–30 minutes. RATs have been used in several countries as part of mass testing or population-wide screening approaches. Many RATs can be used for self-testing, in which an individual "collects their own specimen… and interpret[s] their test result themselves".
Alexander L. Greninger is assistant director of the UW Medicine Clinical Virology Laboratory and a UW assistant professor of Laboratory Medicine. His research is focused on genomic and proteomic characterization of a variety of human viruses and bacteria, with a focus on respiratory viruses and human herpesviruses.
US$957 million(2020) [1] 
