Thread by @allthecitizens

🚨NEW: Last week the UK Health and Security Agency published contracts for the purchase of Lateral Flow Tests (LFTs) worth £980 million.

Those contracts follow a shortage of LFTs in December as cases of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 spiked. @BylineBITE / @allthecitizens 🧵

The majority of the contracts were given to INNOVA MEDICAL GROUP, a US-based company who have been the primary supplier of LFTs to the UK since the start of the pandemic.

The company who has won the most in pandemic-related contracts from the UK government, Innova won £752 million in LFT contracts on December 17. The largest of these was for £322 million. So far, INNOVA have won at least £4.3 billion in UK contracts for Lateral Flow Tests.

This despite, in the US, the FDA warning in June 2021 to “stop using the Innova Medical Group SARS-CoV-2 Antigen Rapid Qualitative Test for diagnostic use” due to “significant concerns that the performance of the test has not been adequately established”.
fda.gov/medical-device…

Faced with such concerns, a positive review in June 2021 by the UK Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), led the British government to decide to continue sourcing LFTs from INNOVA. Money was clearly made.
gov.uk/government/new…

In Sep 2021, Charles Huang, CEO of Pasaca Capital which owns INNOVA, donated £50m to Strathclyde Uni, where he had been a PhD student. “£30M of the transformational gift will support the construction of a new building named after Dr Charles Huang”
strath.ac.uk/whystrathclyde…

Huang has also donated $40m to Wuhan Uni, in the city where he was born and grew up and where Covid19 first emerged. The Charles Huang Foundation said the money “will be used to support 6 programs named after Innova Medical Group Inc and Pasaca Capital”
citywireasia.com/news/covid-tes…

Executives at Pasaca Capital have also reportedly bought private jets and multimillion dollar homes near the company’s Californian headquarters.
latimes.com/business/story…

Innova’s contracts also helped one British firm. Disruptive Nanotechnology Ltd, which was in debt at the end of 2019, to make profits of £20.5m last year, for helping to secure Innova’s LFT contracts.
metro.co.uk/2022/01/04/pan…

The Daily Mail said “Innova's spokesman told the Mail in 2020 that to secure government contracts, 'you need to find someone who has connections'.”
dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1…

However, critics warn that relying on imports of LFTs from abroad risks leading to shortages, reduces health security and supply chain integrity and does little for domestic medical manufacturers, who continue to struggle to get their Covid tests accredited.

Professor Prashant Yadav, a supply chain expert at INSEAD, told the @allthcitizens and @BylineTimes that:

Despite this, UK firms like Mologic have faced hurdles bringing their LFTs to market. Their test was refused accreditation by the scientific lab at Porton Down. They have called to re-run the test, but now Mologic have had to sell abroad rather than the UK
thetimes.co.uk/article/delays…

Professor Sanjeev Krishna, of St George’s University of London and a consultant to Covid test manufacturer Mologic said of the rejected tests:“If Porton Down couldn’t get (them) to work then we need a powerful spotlight on this… what are the procedures, how are they being done?”

Lib Dem Daisy Cooper said “it’s deeply concerning that UK manufacturers may have been overlooked when the Government was handing out large contracts for PPE. It becomes clearer every day that we need a truly independent inquiry into the Government’s handling of the pandemic"

Labour’s Florence Eshalomi MP said "Its two years since the pandemic began and it is unacceptable that the Government is stifling the ability for British manufacturers to support testing. Labour… will work with British manufacturers to make sure we always have a supply of tests”

Innova Medical were approached for comment on January 28, but did not reply.

Full write-up by @jwsal in @BylineTimes below:
bylinetimes.com/2022/02/04/mps…