HONG KONG, April 16, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Global genomics leader BGI has produced more than 10 million of its RT-PCR Test for SARS-CoV-2 and is distributing them to more than 80 countries around the world, including India, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Brunei, and Japan. BGI's Huo-Yan ("Fire Eye") Laboratories have also been set up in Asia, US, Europe, and the Middle East, bringing population-scale detection and diagnosis of COVID-19 to the world.
"The most critical thing for all of us at BGI is to help bring this pandemic under control. We are working with governments and institutions globally to achieve this mission," says Yin Ye, CEO of BGI Genomics, part of BGI Group. "We have more than trebled our production capacity to two million reactions a day to meet demand and expect to increase that again to three million reactions in the coming weeks."
In addition, BGI has donated over 130,000 test kits, while partner organizations have donated another 178,000 of BGI's test kits.
BGI is one of the few companies globally that has products recognized as officially approved for use in China, the European Union, the United States, and Japan. BGI's RT-PCR Test for SARS-CoV-2 has been granted approval by the US FDA Emergency Use Authorization, Europe's CE-IVD, China's NMPA and Japan's PMDA.
BGI Group was at the forefront of the fight against COVID-19 in China and is now spearheading a worldwide response, deploying not only BGI tests but also MGI laboratory robots to automate sample preparation and powerful sequencers to track virus mutations.
In Wuhan, BGI set up its first Huo-Yan or "Fire Eye" Laboratory in five days. The 2,000 square-meter automated Biosafety Level-2 PCR testing laboratory can perform 10,000 tests a day. This comprehensive solution for rapidly scaling-up diagnostic testing is now being implemented by other markets including Brunei, the UAE, Sweden, Serbia, Israel, Gaza and the US, with more locations under consideration. Fire Eye laboratories combine the best of BGI Group expertise, with the laboratory equipment produced by MGI, a part of the BGI Group focused on sequencing tools and lab automation.
Sequencing plays a number of roles in the fight against COVID-19, explains Duncan Yu, President of MGI. "It helped identify the virus that caused COVID-19 and can track new strains of the virus as it mutates and the speed of those changes."
BGI has also designed a mobile, inflatable biosafety lab called an Air Lab to offer an effective deployment solution for COVID-19 testing in places where setting up a traditional lab is difficult.
The BGI Group has a long history of responding to public health crises including decoding the genome of the SARS virus in 2003, then developing the virus detection kit in 96 hours, and helping fight the Ebola outbreak in 2014 in West Africa.
