Israeli diagnostics company wins Defense Ministry contract to fight COVID
The process and the reagents shorten the time for testing and the risk of infection to laboratory staff.
By JERUSALEM POST STAFFIsraelis perform tests for the coronavirus at a Maccabi Test Center, in Ramle. January 7, 2021(photo credit: YOSSI ALONI/FLASH90)
Ashdod-based Savyon Diagnostics, which manufactures and markets diagnostic solutions for the detection of infectious diseases and for genetic screening, won a contract from the Defense Ministry for the supply of 100,000 test tubes containing agents for the direct sampling of coronavirus.Savyon is the daughter company of Netherlands-based Gamidor Diagnostics, and a member of the Gamida for Life group of companies. Savyon has been providing testing systems, reagents and services to clinical laboratories and hospitals since the mid-1980s.The company has been at the forefront of the battle against coronavirus, working closely with the Health and Defense ministries. It helped procure the test kits and machines that are needed to test and interpret their results.Savyon was responsible for creating some of the missing reagents needed to develop the standard PCR tests being taken in Israel, during the onset of the pandemic.It produced a fluid reagent in 2020 that allows the virus to neutralize and extract the genetic material of the coronavirus simultaneously. The sample can be taken from the patient, and after it enters the test tube, it is immediately ready for testing.The process and the reagents shorten the time for testing and the risk of infection to laboratory staff.Lahav Harkov, Maayan Jaffe-Hoffman and Zachary Keyser contributed to this report.
