PHC Obtains Official Approval for COVID-19 Rapid Antigen Test Kit

[Asia Economy Reporter Jang Hyowon] PHC (CEO Choi Inhwan) announced on the 13th that it has obtained official domestic approval from the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety for its rapid antigen test kit, Gmate Covid-19 Ag, for use within Korea.

This approval converts the conditional approval granted on January 25th into official domestic approval by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety. The rapid antigen test kit is currently the most commonly used product, allowing simple confirmation of positive or negative results through nasopharyngeal swab specimen collection in patients with infection symptoms, with results available within 15 minutes.

Recently, in Korea, there is an expectation of a calming trend in the Covid-19 situation due to the slowdown in confirmed cases caused by the Omicron variant and the easing of government quarantine regulations, so the demand for rapid antigen test kits is expected to decrease significantly compared to before. However, concerns have been raised about the potential spread of various variant viruses due to the recent domestic emergence of the XL variant and combinations of Omicron subvariants.

A company official stated, “We expect that this approval will give momentum to the ongoing discussions regarding domestic distribution contracts.”

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