Celltrion has announced that the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) under the Department of Defense has awarded Celltrion USA, Inc., a subsidiary company of Celltrion, a procurement contract for its DiaTrust^TM COVID-19 Ag Rapid Test.

Celltrion USA will make deliveries to approximately 25,000 U.S. CONUS locations to support military bases, long-term care facilities, community testing sites, critical infrastructure, and other designated places on a weekly basis.

The DLA estimates its order volume to be as much as $626 million considering the change in demand by the COVID-19 community transmission rate in the U.S.

Celltrion’s supply capability for the contract volume is sufficiently supported by the large-scale production facility in Korea. In addition, Celltrion USA emphasized the firm’s drug distribution performance in the US market for the last three years to demonstrate its ability to perform timely deliveries to 25,000 designated places in the U.S., at a competitive price.

Unlike other COVID-19 Antigen Rapid Test kits, DiaTrust^TM is a product that applied two antibodies binding COVID-19 virus to both N-protein and S-protein, respectively, resulting in improved sensitivity of 93.3% and specificity of 99.0%. Also, the infection can be diagnosed within only 15 minutes.

The test kits to be supplied through this contact are point-of-care tests (POCT) which can only be used in the presence of medical professionals.