How Australian company Ellume is leading the COVID battle

“All of the tests of that kind were designed to be used by doctors and nurses, there was nothing that could be used by a patient,” he said.

“Whereas a lot of other companies I think have tried to pivot over the last year to provide that sort of test, we’ve been working on the problem for the last 10 years, so we were well-placed to offer a solution.”

The biotech company that grew out of his idea, Ellume, has found itself in the box seat to offer a solution to people in the US reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The US government this week committed $US231.8 million (about $A303 million) to expand the production of its home COVID-19 tests.

The funding means the company, with its office in the back streets of East Brisbane and a small factory in the outer suburbs, can increase the production of the test kits by 500,000 a day by establishing a US-based production facility.

It is the first time Ellume has expanded outside Australia.

“We’ve been working on this for a long time – 2013, ’14, ’15 were really all about sorting out the tech, and it wasn’t until 2017, ’18, ’19 that our products started to come together effectively,” Dr Parsons said.

The technology platform developed by Ellume was designed with influenza in mind, however it reportedly took little effort to reposition to testing for a coronavirus like SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19.

The tests are self-administered and give results within 15 minutes, using a nasal swab to get a sample.

Users put the sample in a digital analyser and get a result on a linked smartphone app.

The test has an accuracy of 95 per cent and retails for about $US30, meaning it is easy to use, affordable and gives results quickly – the perfect tool to help get a country such as the US out of the grip of the pandemic.

In December the company received emergency regulatory approval from the US Food and Drug Administration to sell the tests over the counter, further increasing their appeal.

The US government invested $US30 million in the project in 2020, as it cast about for solutions to its worsening crisis, even as its then-president Donald Trump played down the severity of the situation.

Ellume found itself with a powerful friend working on its behalf in Washington — former federal treasurer Joe Hockey, who was the Australian ambassador to the US.

“He’s been an adviser to us … and he’s been fantastic in helping to navigate the ins and outs of Washington,” Dr Parsons said.

“We feel like Joe’s really part of the family in terms of lending a shoulder and helping us connect to people and providing his counsel on understanding how things get done in Washington.”

Ellume is pumping out 100,000 test kits a day from its manufacturing plant at Richlands in Brisbane’s south-west, with plans to scale up to 200,000 a day.

The US facility will be dedicated to producing the COVID test kits, however when it comes online it will allow the Brisbane manufacturing plant to transition back to some of the other products Ellume makes, including tests for flu and tuberculosis.

The US government’s order is for an initial 8.5 million COVID-19 tests that will be distributed across America, with Ellume’s entire output of the test kits directed to the US after the Trump administration put up a $US30 million grant last year.

The first 10,000 kits, shipped about a fortnight ago, have been distributed to three states, with tens of thousands more to be shipped soon.

While you would think it would be time to break out the champagne with the deal with the US government finalised, Dr Parsons said the celebration would have to wait.

“We’re focused on getting the US facility up and running now, which is obviously a massive job,” he said.

“So we’ll celebrate, but we’ll celebrate later, and it’ll involve the whole team who’ve brought this together.

“We’ll always be a Brisbane company, an Australian company, but we’ve shown that working as a team we can overcome any challenge.”