Contribution of the Eurofins network of companies to the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic

The Eurofins network’s response to COVID-19 – Eurofins invested massively as early as January 2020 to contribute to facilitate up to 20 Million Tests a Month to support the Continuity of Essential Services and of the Economic Activity as well as the Resumption of Travelling and Leisure after lockdowns

COVID-19 was labelled a global pandemic by the World Health Organization in March 2020. In the immediate outbreak, countries across the world grappled with the devastating effects of the virus on their citizens, public health systems and economies. Already in January 2020, before any demand for private testing existed in Europe and the USA, Eurofins leadership decided to take the risk to invest hundreds of millions to develop reagents for tests and testing capacity to help slow down and fight the upcoming pandemic.

Indeed, Eurofins acted quickly to develop a large range of new tests and ramp up testing capacity to support governments to safeguard public health and innovated to bring urgently required tests to the market to support the fight against COVID-19. As a result, it was able, in the spring and summer of 2020, to rescue several governments who were lacking the testing capacity to protect their populations and critical services.

From the onset of the crisis, Eurofins leadership’s priority was to quickly mobilise all available scientific talent and resources across Group companies to keep societies safe, and support clients and public health authorities in their response to the virus. Widespread testing was a cornerstone of the strategies developed by governments and national health authorities across the globe to protect their societies from the virus. Eurofins made such heavy investments while there was no certainty on the volume of tests that would be required nor on the duration of the pandemic.

By May 2020, Eurofins companies had already created a large range of products and services to facilitate over 20 million patient tests per month globally. Eurofins teams were working round the clock in 50 state-of-the-art COVID-19 testing laboratories around the world to deliver results in very short turnaround times, often within 12 to 24 hours. Eurofins’ support included optimised SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) specific probes and primers to be incorporated in millions of SARS-CoV-2 testing kits worldwide.

Eurofins teams established and ramped up COVID-19 clinical testing capacity to identify those carrying the virus, using several, mostly internally developed, real time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) methods. This meant expanding Eurofins laboratories’ testing capacities, but also developing new products that would allow operators to perform the actual testing (nucleic acids extraction kits, RT-PCR kits, etc.). During the course of the pandemic, Eurofins processed 40 million PCR tests in its own laboratories and supplied probes and reagents to other laboratories to process many million others.

As the pandemic progressed, antibody testing played an increasingly helpful role, by identifying people who may have been exposed to the virus, possibly without even noticing, and allowing health authorities to evaluate population exposure and immune response. This provided insights to inform policy decisions such as vaccination strategies, for example. Eurofins developed antibody testing services and kits so that those who may have been sick, but could not be tested at the time, could determine if they already had antibodies as a result of exposure to COVID-19. Eurofins launched particularly fast, rapid, point-of-care finger-prick testing devices which identified antibodies in just 10 minutes, with a sensitivity of 94.5% from 19 days following the onset of symptoms.

Eurofins also developed T-cell assays, which facilitated the detection of the T-cells specific to the virus in a patient which was for instance particularly helpful for the development of vaccines. Besides, this was significant because variations in T-cell populations have been reported to provide insights about the outcome of disease progression, and these help doctors to plan for ICU (Intensive Care Unit) bed and ventilator capacity, especially in times where there may have been shortages.

During the initial outbreak of the virus, governments across the world chose to “lock down” economies and societies. As economic and social activity returned, it was obvious that ongoing surveillance would be necessary to quickly identify any resurgence in COVID-19 cases and monitor the spread of the disease across all types of environments and workplaces. Eurofins developed monitoring methods and kits such as environmental surface testing, wastewater testing, air testing and worn mask testing to detect the presence of SARS-CoV-2 at very early stages, and, as a result, minimise spread.

Eurofins was the first commercial laboratory in Europe to offer COVID-19 wastewater testing. Testing wastewater provides an early indication of the presence of a virus in a specific community or at a work site. Faeces from people infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus contain genetic material (RNA) from the virus, and that viral RNA can be detected in sewage and wastewater. Studies have shown wastewater testing capable of detecting a community COVID-19 prevalence rate as low as a 0.02% - 0.1% (i.e. between 2 virus shedders per 10,000 persons and 1 virus shedder per 1,000 persons). In Denmark, for example, Eurofins’ wastewater testing method detected SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater two days before the first official COVID-19 case was confirmed in the country. This technology was also successfully used to detect asymptomatic spreaders on college campuses. Wastewater testing in sewage plants is commonplace in many countries around the world, and so this method could be easily rolled out to provide crucial information to communities ahead of future pandemics. Eurofins made its wastewater testing kits available for purchase to other laboratories as well as public health authorities in several countries.

Besides carrying out testing in their own laboratories, several Eurofins companies received approval for their laboratory-developed tests to be used for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 in patients by public and private laboratories. Eurofins also developed dedicated reagents to support the entire testing process: from nucleic acids extraction kits, to PCR kits for SARS-CoV-2 detection and for specific variant identification, to kits for SARS-CoV-2 sequencing, antibody testing and T-cell monitoring, including equipment and point of care solutions. Besides developing kits for Eurofins and other laboratories to carry out PCR testing, Eurofins also developed a unique SARS-CoV-2 detection kit using sequencing equipment common in molecular testing and Genomics laboratories. This method, which is as sensitive as PCR testing, resulted in much needed additional testing capacity.

During the pandemic, Eurofins companies also facilitated the sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 to identify new virus strains or Variants of Concern as they emerged. Eurofins opened a high-throughput sequencing laboratory to analyse the full genome of SARS-CoV-2 and support the European Center for Disease Control. Between February 2021 and February 2022 more than 250,000 viral genomes, extracted from samples collected in 24 countries, were fully sequenced and analysed thanks to this collaboration, contributing to the identification and tracking of emerging virus strains.

Early detection of particularly virulent variants with increased transmissibility is key to delaying their spread within the population. With this objective in mind, Eurofins companies developed more than 15 CE marked clinical kits and more than eight water surveillance and surface tests for variant screening, all of which were brought to the market in record time. On the same day that Omicron was officially designated a Variant of Concern by WHO, Eurofins companies launched a screening solution to identify that variant.

Eurofins laboratories also carried out emergency testing of medical devices, such as respirators, and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) during the pandemic.

Eurofins’ unmatched global network of BioPharma Product Testing laboratories ramped up capacity to support some of the largest global pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies developing products to fight COVID-19, and launched products and services aimed at supporting the research necessary to develop novel vaccines and therapeutics. This contributed to reducing the time required to develop and carry out clinical trials for vaccines.

Besides testing for the virus, there were many areas where Eurofins directly supported professionals working on the front line. Eurofins worked throughout the pandemic to secure the continued supply of critical infrastructure and essential services such as safe drinking water, essential pharmaceutical products, medical devices and important chemical products and the safe food, beverages and agricultural products sold on supermarket shelves, among many others.

Further information about the support the Eurofins network provided to public health authorities and governments in relation to COVID-19 is available here.