Cue Health awarded $481 mln to scale up production of COVID-19 test -HHS

Adds details of test kits
Oct 13 (Reuters) – The U.S. government has awarded diagnostic testing company Cue Health Inc $481 million to scale up the production of rapid COVID-19 molecular test, the Department of Health and Human Services said on Tuesday.
The company will raise the domestic production of COVID-19 test kits to 100,000 per day by March 2021 under the deal and deliver 6 million tests and 30,000 instruments to the government to support its response to the pandemic, the health agency said.
The point-of-care test can detect the novel coronavirus in about 20 minutes with nasal swab samples collected using a Sample Wand from the lower part of the nose, the HHS said.
The system also allows results to be sent to a mobile phone via an app.
The company’s test kit was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in June for emergency