Expansion of Coronavirus Research Products Announced

Integrated DNA Technologies (IDT), a leading comprehensive genomics solutions provider, announced a significant expansion of its coronavirus product line with the addition of primer-probe kits equivalent to the primer and probe ratios described in the WHO-Charité/Berlin (‘WHO’) panel. IDT is now accepting pre-orders for these qPCR primers and probes kits, which will be available for shipping to laboratories in the US, Europe, and Asia-Pacific region within the next several days.

IDT has already produced primer and probe kits sufficient to enable approximately 23 million tests to be conducted in the US pursuant to the CDC EUA testing protocol. IDT will continue to produce primer and probe kits to be used in the CDC EUA testing protocol.

The WHO panel is a common name for the COVID-19 test developed at Charité Universitätsmedizin in Berlin, Germany, one of Europe's largest university hospitals, for the World Health Organization (WHO). The WHO panel contains assays for detection of the RdRp and E genes to enable specific detection of the COVID-19 sequence. The WHO testing protocol has been used more routinely in Europe and Asia than in the US, where the CDC testing protocol is approved for use in COVID-19 testing by the FDA’s EUA. IDT has seen an increased demand in custom orders for primers and probes matching the requirements set out in the WHO panel and is now offering these to global customers with short turnaround times.

IDT makes a kit containing DNA primers and probes in equivalent ratios described in the WHO-Charité/Berlin panel that are designed to amplify and detect the presence of specific viral RNA in a patient sample, in this case, sequences that are specific to COVID-19 coronaviruses. If a patient sample contains COVID-19 coronaviruses, the DNA primers will amplify those virally derived DNA sequences, and the DNA probes will fluoresce. IDT makes primers and probes for these types of applications in our GMP-compliant facility, specifically in clean rooms designed to prevent synthetic template contamination to ensure high product integrity and performance.

The panels will have the same level of product integrity and performance that the company successfully brought to the manufacture of the primer and probe kits authorised for use with the CDC EUA testing protocol used in the U.S. IDT’s large-scale manufacturing capabilities will allow it to meet global needs over the coming weeks and months. Requests for pre-orders for the kit can be sent to IDT’s dedicated email address coronavirus@idtdna.com. IDT’s service and scientific application support teams will address inquiries and guide customers through the process.

Additionally, IDT will be introducing a new 1,000 reaction-size kit for use in the CDC EUA testing protocol, which will incorporate probes with Iowa Black-ZEN quenchers. The Iowa Black-ZEN technology recently was approved for use in the CDC protocol as an equivalent alternative to the quenchers used in the original CDC test panel publication.

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