Wellbiotech Signs Supply Contract for COVID-19 Test Kits with Solgent... "Surge of Preorders from Europe"

[Asia Economy Reporter Hyunseok Yoo] Wellbiotech announced on the 24th that it has signed a supply contract for the 'DiaPlexQ™ Novel Coronavirus Detection Kit,' a COVID-19 diagnostic kit developed by Solgent.

Under this contract, Wellbiotech will receive Solgent's diagnostic kits and sell them domestically and internationally. The payment for the first supply contract worth $2.4 million (approximately 3 billion KRW) has already been completed, and the company plans to increase the supply volume in the future.

Unlike the conventional comprehensive polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests used for COVID-19 testing, the diagnostic kit developed by Solgent uses the gene amplification (RT-PCR) method.

While the PCR method takes about 1 to 2 days for testing, the RT-PCR method can test within 2 hours after extracting RNA (ribonucleic acid) from two COVID-19 virus genes (ORF1a gene, N gene). It does not detect other viruses or bacteria besides COVID-19 and can diagnose with only a small amount of sample.

This diagnostic kit has received emergency use authorization and export approval from the Korean Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, as well as CE certification in Europe. A company official stated, “Through our subsidiary NicePharm and strategic partner EC Corporation, we have received pre-orders for diagnostic kits from several European countries,” adding, “We plan to export an initial batch of diagnostic kits for 50,000 people in March.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.