Here Comes a Speedy Reagent Test Kits for Novel Coronavirus Patients Without Fever or Other Symptoms

I’m glad that I can finally share a piece of good news: the R&D of nucleic acid reagent test kits for novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) led by Fosun Pharma in diagnosis has been successfully completed. At present, we are proactively applying to the National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) for urgent approval in compliance with relevant national regulations.

“You have made great contribution!” I cheered the team up in our group on DingTalk as soon as I got the news. This is the most exciting news I have known these days!

The scariest part of the novel coronavirus is that the infectivity before the symptom of having a fever appears is much stronger than that of SARS. There are a number of infected persons with strong infectivity without such a symptom as having a fever from beginning to end. Hence, judging whether a person is a patient with novel coronavirus-caused pneumonia only by whether he or she has the symptom of having a fever is far from enough.

Whether a virus is preventable and controllable first depends on whether it can be rapidly detected. As academician Zhong Nanshan says, early identification and early diagnosis is the most effective and primitive method for prevention and control.

It means that rapid detection of a virus is a previous step of vaccine development and the key for us to quickly win the battle.

An important role played by the nucleic acid reagent test kits which we have just developed is to help fast screen carriers of this virus. Whether an infected person is without or with the symptom of having a fever can be quickly identified, so that the source of infection can be rapidly cut off to contain the retransmission of the virus.

Most importantly, High efficiency is the key. Unattended operation is practicable by virtue of the supporting rapid nucleic acid isolation machine and extraction reagent of this product, remarkably reducing the time for manual operation by experimenters. Continuous operation is feasible in the three zones of a lab, where only two experimenters are needed. The latest record is that all detection steps of 96 specimens can be completed in 2 hours. In other words, a 3A hospital can detect more than 1,000 specimens a day by adopting this model, the speed being much higher than that of the present detection, 200 specimens a day. It also makes possible the mass screening of suspected cases. Certainly, the risk of experimenters being infected can be greatly lowered in the meantime.

The completion of R&D of the reagent has given me a hope of a quick victory in the battle against the epidemic.

Back to 27 years ago when Fosun just started its business, our first medical product was PCR HBV Diagnostic Reagent for viral hepatitis, the most horrible infectious disease of the time.

At that time, our scientific research team spent all day in a humble laboratory, doing experiments day and night to race against time. It was such a blockbuster product that laid an important foundation for the future development of Fosun Pharma.

Since the outbreak of the epidemic, we have been supporting the epidemic prevention and control through the deployment of global supplies, and our hospitals and medical staff have been fighting against the epidemic at the front line. Now, our R&D team has finally brought us this good news.

We are proactively striving to speed up the progress, and further accelerating the nationwide deployment of the fight against the epidemic, to deliver our nucleic acid reagent test kits to the front-line medical workers as soon as possible, supporting them to win the battle against the epidemic.