As SARS-CoV-2 spreads into more countries, and peak season of cold-flu is still in full swing, the demand for accurate diagnostic kits is putting enormous pressure on kit manufacturers, hospitals, validation laboratories and regulatory agencies.

Liferiver Biotech's Novel Coronavirus Real-Time RT-PCR Kit was one of the first on the market, sold as a Research Use Only (RUO) product to disease control centres only. But since LifeRiver's assay received a licence from the National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) it has fast-tracked its approval to be sold to hospitals. 

The kit can provide results within 2 hours, it has 100% homology with the published genomes of the virus and is designed in such a way so it can maintain this accuracy for as long as the virus exists,  "even if the virus mutates, it is unlikely that all three targets will change," declares Shao JunBin, Chairman of Liferiver Biotech.

LifeRiver's partner Bio Molecular Systems (BMS), launched their MIC (Magnetic Induction Cycler) qPCR instrument last year. LifeRiver's diagnostics kit can be used on this revolutionary thermocycler, that can provide results within 25 minutes. Due to this partnership, BMS has stated that they are prioritizing all of their production to ensure sufficient stocks are available for the MIC qPCR and consumables.