Officials with a Salt Lake City-based biomedical company called Co-Diagnostics said Monday the firm had developed a test for the virus in early January and received clearance from top European regulators on its use.
But expedited approval for the test from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is still forthcoming, said Seth Egan, the company’s international head of sales.
The small publicly traded company is capable of manufacturing 50,000 tests per day at its Utah facilities, at a cost of $10 per test, and already ships testing kits to Italy, Turkey, England and Australia, Egan said.
“We could supply all of the testing needs in Utah and greater areas around us easily,” he told a group of tech leaders in a Monday conference call about the virus. “We sit here a little amazed that we have a test that is available in European nations but we can’t sell it as a clinical diagnostic in our own home state.”
An official with Silicon Slopes, representing more than 6,000 Utah technology companies, said the group would make financial backing and support available if needed in the coming days to help secure that emergency FDA approval.