Van: Bramley67 (= beheerder van Novacyt site) en gepost op "Telegram":
Thought this was interesting on the lse board
Good evening all, it’s been a busy weekend with much to digest. Thank you for all the informative posts.
One bit of news that does not appear to have been picked up by this board, however, is yesterday’s FT article (unfortunately, I only have the print version so no link, I’m afraid) regarding a new Director of Testing at the NHS.
I will summarise the key points of the article that relate to Novacyt:
1. First the post was held by a Ms Marsh, a former chief executive of the NHS. She could not cope with the pressure of the job and was as much use as a chocolate fireguard (my words!), achieving very little.
2. Mike Coupe then took over – he was former Sainsbury’s CEO. Under him the test and trace programme increased to around 550k tests per day. But he deployed LFT to local authorities, universities, hospitals and care homes (we all know how stupid that decision was). In addition, the National Audit Office found significant shortcoming in turnaround times of lab-based PCR tests (only 28% within 24hours!).
3. Jason Holt is now replacing Mike Cope (presumably due to the above short comings – Public Health England did not comment). Jason Holt was previously head of the aviation company, Swissport, where had had lobbied the government to use swab tests [PCR] to release passengers from 14-day quarantine period, which he described as a “win-win” for the government, passengers and the aviation sector.
What is the significance to Novacyt of the above? I believe this could be very positive.
Jason Holt is significantly more pro- PCR. He is also ruthless and should get the job done. IMO, the government are not necessarily using LFT just due to cost but more to do with ease of use and turn around time. Under Holt, we could see a significate shift away from LFT and toward PCR, if he can get the systems in place to see a more rapid turnaround to centralised (Lighthouse lab) testing and fully utilising the available capacity.
Holt may also see the value in near patient testing and the Q16/32 machines (or Versalab), having lobbied for similar to be used at airports. Clearly, many flights out of UK have been stopped this weekend. The only way out of this is to ensure that all passengers are tested before boarding with a PCR that is guaranteed to pick up the new variant – which Primerdesign test clearly do.
In the is new role, however, his interest will be much wider than aviation. If he thinks it will work for air traffic, he will see it working for schools, hospitals and care homes, plus businesses etc.
Patience is needed. In the end this government will get there and fully harness the potential of this great company.
GLA, joint the dots… and keep the faith (don’t sell those golden tickets), £1bn, SP £15 plus will be worth the wait.