Daewoong Pharmaceutical signs Covid test kit deal in Vietnam

The AllCheck Covid-19 test kit [DAEWOONG PHARMACEUTICAL]

Daewoong Pharmaceutical said Monday it will supply Vietnamese pharmaceutical company Vietha Pharma Covid-19 diagnostic kits in a deal potentially worth 12 billion won ($10.2 million).

AllCheck test kits, developed by Calth, a Seongnam, Gyeonggi-based start-up, produce results within 15 minutes. Daewoong obtained rights to market the product in July.

Daewoong aims to gain use approval for the test kit in Vietnam as soon as possible and start selling it there as early as the end of the year. Vietnam is currently suffering from the growing number of infections, now totaling around 8,000 a day. The Vietnamese government said it will buy 100 million test kits by the end of the year and distribute them to the public.

“The test kit, which was developed by Calth and will be distributed by Daewoong, has been recognized for its speed and accuracy,” said Park Hyun-jin, head of global business team at Daewoong Pharmaceutical. “With the deal, we hope Vietnamese people will be able to receive the test results quickly.”

The test kit has 97.5 percent sensitivity and 100 percent specificity. The sensitivity of a clinical test refers to the ability to correctly identify those patients with the disease, which means a test with 100 percent sensitivity correctly identifies all patients with the disease. Specificity is the ability of the test to correctly identify those patients without the disease.

BY SARAH CHEA [chea.sarah@joongang.co.kr]