3 ms·

How many machines are in the US?

• adventured 7y ago
  There are 110 in the US (of either type; most are likely the 6800), and Roche says they've installed a "significant" number in the US in the last few weeks (who knows what that means). https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/other/487393-fda-grants-emergency-approval-for-faster-coronavirus-test https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/other/487393-fda-grant...
• x0x0 7y ago
  These are hardly the only machines that can run rtPCR though; they're just highly automated. eg biorad makes and sells tons of (much simpler), typically 96-well rtPCR machines. You can find them on ebay for like $5k. Training people to use them is not particularly hard, and you can probably do 4-8 runs / day on one of them. NB: 96 will means you probably can process 88-92 samples per run plus 4-8 controls. The limiting factor is approved tests and reagents, laboratory bench time to prep samples, and a distribution mechanism to get test kits to to people and then to labs.
  • ksk 7y ago
    Who is going to supply you the primer for that kind of volume? :)
    • inferiorhuman 7y ago
      Roche ramped up production in anticipation of approval, so hopefully they can.