Tianjin rewards contributions to COVID-19 fight

The north China municipality of Tianjin has granted awards to nine leading companies, research institutions and universities to honor their outstanding contributions in the fight against the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

The awards, announced on Thursday, are the first of their kind in the country to honor such commitment at provincial-level.

The city granted Bioscience (Tianjin) Diagnostic Technology Co Ltd a special award for its efforts to develop the magnetic particle chemiluminesciene in the COVID-19 IgM/lgG antibody test method - a pioneering plan to supplement the antibody test and improve accuracy and precision when confirming the presence of COVID-19 virus in the human body.

Its IgM/IgG antibody diagnostic kits for the novel coronavirus were the first of the Chinese products to gain the CE (Conformité Européenne) technical qualification in Europe.

Luan Dawei, president of Bioscience (Tianjin) Diagnostic Technology Co Ltd, said: “The company has provided the products to more than 600 Chinese hospitals and overseas hospitals in Italy, Malaysia and Myanmar and Thailand.”

To date, its IgM antibody diagnostic kits have supported up to 280,000 antibody tests in domestic use, including 220,000 donated tests with a total value of about 9 million yuan, and IgG antibody diagnostic kits have supported up to 310,000 domestic antibody tests including 270,000 donated tests with a total value of about 11 million yuan. The company has also donated 116 units of magnetic particle automatic chemiluminescence immunoassay systems with a total price of about 40 million yuan. In total, Bioscience’s donations totaled about 60 million yuan.

In March, the novel coronavirus antibody test kit obtained CE certification, which quickly introduced the innovative products of China's science and technology campaign to the international community, providing the "Chinese model" of epidemic prevention and control to the world.

Luan Dawei also noted that Bioscience was among the world’s leading companies to own the full lineup of the COVID-19 antibody diagnostic kit portfolio, including the magnetic particle chemiluminesceine, point-of-care test and the rapid colloidal gold method test.

The wide use of China’s COVID-19 virus test has proven that Bioscience can complete 120 tests conducted and concluded simultaneously within one hour, Luan said.

He also indicated the company has seen mass production of the kit, and it can now produce up to 500,000 tests at the same time.

Its efforts to help the country’s campaign to combat the pandemic include the fact that, since late January, it has begun the test for nine provinces including the epicenter of Hubei province, Tianjin and Beijing.