In a quiet corner of east London, where the City skyline looms large through the windows, there’s a place where machines hum like washer-dryers, spotless surfaces are cleaned on a loop and scientists in pristine white lab coats go about their day with no fear of catching coronavirus. This is life in an antibody testing lab, one that is hoping to send millions back to work with one painless prick of a needle.
The lab I’m in, run by Hvivo (part of the NHS Research Authority, linked to Queen Mary University and tacked on to the back of the Royal London, Whitechapel) uses the blood-draw method — where a nurse or GP takes your blood — and it’s as accurate as the test given to NHS workers: 99.8 per cent.
For around £100, Hvivo hopes to offer the test via a nationwide network of clinics based either within businesses or outside them.
Open Orphan (LON:ORPH) was founded in 2017, with the goal of rapidly building Europe’s leading pharma services company by a management team with extensive industry and financial expertise. The company comprises of two commercial specialist CRO services businesses (Venn Life Sciences and hVIVO) and is also developing a genomics data platform business (Genomic Health Data).