AdvaMed Urges Administration to Keep Up COVID-19 Test-Making Capacity

The Advanced Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed) and other industry groups are urging the Biden administration to do more to maintain COVID-19 test manufacturing capacity and implement public-private agreements to shore up supply.

AdvaMed has “long advocated for policies, such as warm-base manufacturing arrangements and leveraging of the strategic national stockpile through vendor-managed inventory, as essential to ensuring a robust, ongoing response to the pandemic and to providing a framework for future health emergencies,” said the group’s CEO Scott Whitaker. “We also encourage the quick establishment of concrete commitments between the federal government and manufacturers so that market volatility will no longer determine test availability.”

According to AdvaMed, the diagnostics industry has shipped approximately 800 million molecular tests, including PCR assays, to laboratories across the country since March 2020, as well as more than 1 billion at-home tests.