Atomo Diagnostics says rapid antigen testing for Covid on cusp of breakthrough

Atomo Diagnostics CEO John Kelly: ‘We can bring in up to a million tests a week.’ Picture: Hollie Adams

Starting next week, front line workers at Pacific National will be part of a three-week pilot for rapid antigen testing.

On Friday the rail group signs an agreement with Atomo Diagnostics.

If successful, testing kits will be rolled out across the network as part of a Covid-19 strategy that will literally keep Pacific National on track.

Atomo Diagnostics CEO John Kelly says he is also about to offer rapid testing to small businesses that want to reopen.

Business is driving the push for rapid antigen testing, which in international markets has become not just accepted but an essential part of living free with the virus, whether essential workers or schoolchildren.

State governments, however, have been turning the other cheek.

“It was almost like rapid testing isn’t acceptable and therefore we are not going to sit down and even discuss how it could be successful, more like dogma than anything,” Kelly says.

In recent weeks the surge of cases has shifted thinking in the NSW government, which is now taking an interest in how rapid testing has been proven highly effective overseas.

“Business has been fundamental to the change,” says Kelly.

“To some degree the government is only reacting in response to business being insistent on putting in some pragmatic policies that work, (that are) more functional, deployable and forward looking.”

Rapid testing is not quite as accurate as pathology testing or PCR, but Atomo’s test, made in the US and FDA approved, delivers a result in just 10 minutes.

A former ResMed executive, John Kelly set up Atomo Diagnostics to deliver consumer friendly tests. The company’s rapid blood testing led to the Atomo HIV test.

“We are not the only guys with a Covid-19 rapid test but we are the only company that the TGA has approved an infectious disease cell test for,” he says. A delivery network to set up for supply into people’s homes has also gone through full TGA review.

Government reluctance to embrace rapid testing has been put down to the lobbying of Big Pathology, making millions from PCR testing of Australians.

But Kelly says the country’s virus suppression strategy also suited PCR. “The low rates of infection in the community suited itself to test and trace programs. And most of the people being tested were considered high risk because they had come out of a direct contact.”

With the virus here to stay and people returning to work, the economy now needs community screening.

Rapid testing picks up high viral loads almost instantly, which PCR testing cannot match.

“Finding out you are not negative three days after you have gone to work in an aged care home, you might as well not bother doing the test,” says Kelly.

Pacific National’s Paul Scurrah has come out in favour of rapid testing. He has more than 2000 essential frontline workers, including some in the badly affected Sydney LGAs operating critical supply chains. “I was public about the need to push essential workers to the front of the queue or close the front because there is a pending shortage of train drivers if we are too rigid about how many jabs they have had at a certain point in time. We are incentivising vaccinations, but that test would be really, really helpful.”

Rapid testing has a problem, however. While each test costs $10 to $12, far less than PCR at $80 to $100, the sheer number of tests needed are a major cost to business and a deal breaker for many small firms.

“The elephant in the room is that the government fully subsidises PCR and provides zero cost to the health care system and the patient for a PCR test, yet corporates are expected to pay for rapid antigen testing,” Kelly says.

“I would argue the money they would save in unnecessary PCR would easily pay for itself. But at the moment the reimbursement is not there. I don’t think that is a sustainable or equitable model.”

So far Medicare only supports clinical services. Rapid testing kits that look a bit like pregnancy tests are viewed as goods.

“That’s semantics,” says Kelly. “If you have a professional user doing a rapid test in the field that’s also a service. To say one is a product and one is a service is disingenuous.”

Rapid testing is also not allowed at home. Internationally, home testing can be done without professional supervision and business leaders like Westpac’s Peter King have urged governments to look at the evidence.

Last week Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt told Radio 2GB that rapid home testing kits could be approved in months if not weeks. Momentum was building he said, with rapid tests in workplaces and aged care.

But regulatory approval rests with the TGA which says higher vaccines rates are critical to its decision. Kelly is lobbying hard too. “The TGA has had a lot of feedback to say that the healthcare professional onsite is a bottle neck and really limits the amount of testing that can be done.”

Shortly, he hopes to conclude a large home self-test pilot through a private hospital in Melbourne. “That allows us to take some evidence to the TGA and say here’s local validation that they can be used safely and effectively.”

What the TGA has allowed is the use of telehealth in rapid testing which is welcome news for the Pacific National if it scales up the pilot. “You really need something that is remote and flexible and linked by e-health rather than try to get a driver and a nurse to meet up somewhere. That’s not scalable,” says Kelly.

Scale could also drive costs down Atomo’s testing kits are manufactured in the US and several hundred thousand are being dispatched over the weekend.

“We can bring in up to a million tests a week, but we have to have firm demand because these products do have a limited shelf life. It depends on how extensive the rollout is and what government policies now start to appear on deployments outside corporates,” Kelly says.

Businesses from constructions sites to supermarkets are looking for clarity. Kelly says NSW is still grappling with how to support rapid test deployment but he seeing strong interest from private schools. Children are largely unvaccinated and, in the UK, schools are using rapid testing from home.

“We are about to roll out a program to offer testing to smaller businesses that want to reopen: pubs, bars, restaurants, nail and hair bars. They can register and get trained onsite and then set up their own staff testing protocols under telehealth supervision.”

But that, says Kelly, will be more of a private led opportunity.