French labs show how global supply bottlenecks thwart effort to ramp up testing

Eurobio Scientific SA

25/09/2020 16:17

By Richard Lough
    PARIS, Sept 25 (Reuters) - Mass testing was meant to be the
answer to the second wave. Politicians promised that with enough
tests, conducted quickly enough, they could keep the coronavirus
in check, without having to resort to lockdowns that crippled
economies six months ago.
    But so far, with a surge sweeping Europe just as students
return to school and university, it hasn't quite worked out that
way. There aren't enough tests, and they are taking too long.
    Pierre-Adrien Bihl, who runs four labs that together conduct
800 tests a day in eastern France, has one explanation for what
has gone wrong: a global supply chain that can't keep up.
    "I spend my days checking orders have been made and received
and hassling my supplier to deliver, deliver, deliver," he said.
"But all their clients demand the same thing."
    French President Emmanuel Macron, like other European
leaders, has pressed for a swift increase in tests. His
government promises that anyone who needs a test can get one.
    But five companies that operate laboratories in Paris and
eastern France told Reuters there was simply no way they could
work any faster, as long as they are struggling to obtain
chemicals and test kits that are mainly produced abroad.
    This week, Bihl said, he had to take his diagnostic machine
offline for nearly 24 hours, after a four-day delay in the
delivery of some single-use parts.
    The shutdown forced Bihl to reduce testing appointments
until the backlog could be made up, he said, adding that such
shutdowns were taking place three or four times a month.
    Arthur Clement, who runs four laboratories, said the U.S.
manufacturer of his diagnostic machine, Cepheid  DHR.N , was
sending him just 300 test kits per month at the end of the
summer, as cases surged.
    With his labs performing 25,000 tests per month, Clement had
to send nearly all of them out to a third party, where they were
taking up to 7-10 days to get results. Cepheid did not respond
to a request for comment.
    Clement ordered a new diagnostic machine from a South Korean
manufacturer two months ago, which finally arrived last Friday,
and now he says he can perform all tests in-house and deliver
results in a day.
        
    GLOBAL MARKET
    In Paris, queues snake out of testing centres each day, with
lines forming before sunrise at some. People with COVID symptoms
are waiting on average three days for their results, according
to official data, though for some the wait can be double.
    France is now conducting more than 1.2 million polymerase
chain reaction (PCR) tests per week in response to the epidemic,
which has killed more than 31,000 people in the country and
infected nearly half a million.
    The French health ministry denies that there is a nationwide
shortage of chemicals. It says there have been localised
shortages in some parts of the country, but the overall supply
is adequate. Health Minister Olivier Veran has said France has
access to supplies of reagents equivalent to double the actual
demand for tests.
    But laboratories can't just order chemicals from anywhere:
testing machines typically require proprietary chemical kits and
tools, some of which can be obtained only from the manufacturer.
    The ministry recommends laboratories diversify their
suppliers of testing machines, to mitigate the risk of one
supply chain becoming blocked. But that means buying extra
machines to duplicate capacity, which costs more money and can
take months.
    Suppliers of the machines to French labs include Cepheid and
Becton Dickinson  BDX.N  in the United States, Switzerland's
Roche  ROG.S , and France's Biomerieux  BIOX.PA  and Eurobio
Scientific.  ALERS.PA 
    Cepheid, Roche and Eurobio Scientific did not respond to
requests for comment on the supply of COVID equipment and
reagents. 
    Becton Dickinson told Reuters in an email it was delivering
more than 1 million tests per month globally. It acknowledged
that this has fallen short of demand, but said it aims to scale
up to 1.9 million per month by late 2020.
    Biomerieux said its sites in France had spare capacity.
    Lionel Barrand, one of the five laboratory operators who
spoke to Reuters, said the supply-chain crunch was partly rooted
in France's reliance on imported reagents. He estimated 90% of
COVID-19 reagents used in France were sourced overseas.
    "We depend heavily on the global market," said Barrand, who
heads a laboratory industry group, the Syndicat National des
Jeunes Biologistes.
    Some of the French laboratories worry that U.S. suppliers
such as Cepheid and Becton Dickinson are prioritising labs in
the United States, where healthcare costs are higher and profit
margins bigger.
    Becton Dickinson said it allocates test kits using quotas,
which are set on the basis of the number of its testing machines
in a country and the severity of outbreaks.
    "We do not use pricing, margins or profit as a factor in our
allocations," the company said.

 (Reporting by Richard Lough
Additional reporting by Matthias Blamont
Editing by Peter Graff)
 ((Email: richard.lough@thomsonreuters.com; Tel: +33 1 49 49 52
42;))