Abbott’s BinaxNow COVID-19 Ag Card [Image courtesy of Abbott]
Abbott (NYSE:ABT) is reportedly set to hire 2,000 new employees to increase manufacturing for its rapid COVID-19 test.
The Chicago Sun-Times reported last week that the Abbot Park, Ill.-based company would be adding jobs at its Gurnee, Ill., facility following the FDA emergency use authorization (EUA) for its BinaxNow COVID-19 Ag Card and the subsequent announcement that the U.S. government would pay $750 million for 150 million tests.
Abbott did not offer comment on the announcement but told the Sun-Times that the added jobs will be in place “for the foreseeable future,” while many of the new positions will not require technical experience and will offer training on the job.
The company expects the Gurnee facility to be operating in a couple of weeks, according to the report, while another facility in Maine will assist in production as the company looks to deliver tens of millions of tests this month and get up to 50 million tests per month by October.
Abbott’s test is a speedy antigen test for the virus that can be directly read off the testing card. The test is designed to display a result 15 minutes following a nasal swab: one line for a negative result and two for a positive result. The company will be selling them at $5 apiece.
The test will be accompanied by a mobile app called Navica that allows people who test negative to display a temporary digital health pass that includes the date of the test result. The health pass gets renewed every time they test again and come up negative.