Norgen Biotek passing the test
Manufacturer has doubled its staff that produces COVID-19 test kits
No longer hampered by a shortage of supplies, a Thorold company that makes coronavirus testing kits has more than doubled its staff size in the past month.
“We did secure the supply of various components … we’re over 100 people now,” said Yousef Haj-Ahmad, president of Norgen Biotek Corp.
“I think probably we will reach our capacity at 150 people as needed, over time, over the next few months. A few people at a time.”
Currently, Norgen produces 100,000 test kits per day. The next question — one Haj-Ahmad is already looking in to — is how to expand the company.
A virologist, he founded the biotechnology firm in 1998. Based on Schmon Parkway near Brock University, it provides molecular diagnostic testing for research and clinical trials.
After the COVID-19 pandemic was declared early this year, it began making kits to collect, isolate and detect the presence of the virus.
But it and other firms worldwide struggled for supplies, most notably the swabs that look like oversized Q-Tips and are inserted deep into a person’s nasal cavity to get a sample.
The U.S.-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention set the worldwide standard, requiring nylon-based swabs. The main manufacturer was in Italy, though, which was in the midst of one of the biggest outbreaks.
About a month ago, regulations were eased and the CDC, said Haj-Ahmad, declared “you don’t always have to use the nylon swab, you can use a cotton swab” and results will be just as accurate.
“You could even use a Q-Tip,” he said. “That definitely made the shortage completely reversed, because no longer was everybody running after the same swab from the same source.”
For other supplies, such as chemicals, the price went up and Norgen just had to pay it. Norgen also makes a kit that tests using a person’s saliva.
“We used to buy these things in the kilo, now we buy by the tonne … we definitely have everything we need,” said Haj-Ahmad, adding the company no longer relies on a single supplier for any component.
“All we have to do is scale up production and automate it and expand the facility.”
He said Norgen won’t move away from Thorold, where its facility is 2,160 square metres. The question is whether it expands there or builds another
4,500 or so square metres on a second property elsewhere. He wants Norgen to begin producing antibodies for use in diagnostic testing and hopes to choose the location before summer ends.
“It depends on the incentives for accelerated development,” he said, adding he is looking around Niagara and has also spoken with contacts in Buffalo.
Haj-Ahmad expects that within a few weeks Ontario will fully reopen for business, with more testing combined with tracing of the close contacts of people who have been infected so they can be isolated.
He said he also expects before the end of the year there will be several medications to deal with COVID-19 — some more effective than others — which will buy time for researchers trying to come up with an antidote.
As of Sunday, the coronavirus had killed about 3,600 Canadians and there have been just more than 57,000 confirmed cases in Canada so far this year.