This week, Gov. Tony Evers announced a public-private partnership that aims to double the capacity of COVID-19 testing in Wisconsin.
Its members include Exact Sciences, UW Health, Marshfield Clinic Health System and Promega.
Promega will be providing reagents, which are ingredients used to run the tests.
Wisconsin Health News spoke Thursday with Sara Mann, general manager for the North America branch of Promega. Mann is on the state task force looking at increasing test capacity.
Edited excerpts from the interview are below.
WHN: How did this partnership come about?
SM: We reached out to the governor’s office over a month ago just ensuring that Gov. Evers was aware of how Promega’s involved in this, providing the reagents to different molecular diagnostics manufacturers along with clinical diagnostics laboratories.
(Department of Health Services) Secretary-designee Andrea Palm then was speaking with a variety of stakeholders in the community to determine really, ‘How can we be more proactive and address the testing supply needs?’
So she was in contact with Kevin Conroy, CEO of Exact Sciences, who has known Promega for many years. So Kevin reached out directly to Bill Linton, our CEO and president, and wanted to discuss how Exact could partner with Promega and really understand how we can meet the needs of the community in addressing the increase for testing capacity. So Kevin got us introduced to Secretary Palm and we’ve been involved in the project ever since.
WHN: What are the goals and next steps?
SM: We meet daily. We talk about a variety of different goals that we’re achieving on the short term, which ultimately help address the long-term goal at the end of the day – to really increase testing capacity. So that could be talking about the reagents for the testing kits that are being produced. We also discuss the needs for (personal protective equipment). We discuss different swabs needs, the viral transport media needs that are out there.
So working on this project team, we can also use this time to introduce the members of this organization to our network of connections. So every day, we have sort of mini-goals that we’re essentially working toward that broader goal of increasing capacity.
WHN: Is there a set number of reagents that you’re supplying to this partnership?
SM: Since the beginning of January, we’ve estimated that we’ve provided enough amplification reagents and enzymes to enable more than 20 million samples for SARS-CoV-2 testing worldwide. In a one week timeframe, Promega Madison is producing enough essential components to support 1.25 million COVID-19 diagnostic tests.
So really it’s not a surprise that supplies are struggling to increase production because they’re being asked to increase production near like a 100-fold increase in a few weeks. Really what we’re doing is we’re making sure that we’re in contact with the different labs and understand what their needs are and quantifying those reagents and really understanding, ‘What would be their ideal state and what’s their current capacity?’ With that approach, we’ve been able to provide partial shipments to these labs, which is meeting their needs, but also not completely depleting our inventory in the meantime.
So we’re working with a variety of labs in Wisconsin. Not all labs are using Promega reagents, but many of them are. It takes a while for them just to continue to validate the reagents as well. We’re just working through that process. Every day it looks a little different, but that’s why we meet every day to discuss where we’re all at.
WHN: What are the biggest testing challenges facing the state? Is it the supply side of ingredients?
SM: Yeah, exactly. Making sure that we have enough tests is always on our mind and always part of discussions. PPE, transport media and swabs are also some of the challenges that the state is facing and we are addressing that through the governor’s office, working through the (Federal Emergency Management Agency) and other parts of the federal government to make sure that we can get supplies that we need for Wisconsin.
One challenge that this task force has helped us to overcome really is that collaboration between labs, both public and private, which we believe is going to be one of the biggest keys to success for Wisconsin.
We’ve been working with a number of these facilities for many years. Promega’s been around for 41 years. But the amount of communication between this group, and having this sort of daily meeting, really is helping us all be fully aware of the capacity within each of these individual labs. Having us be part of that discussion helps us make sure that we’re knowing the reagent supply that we need. So it’s been a really nice partnership to have a level-set understanding of where each others’ needs are.
WHN: How has COVID-19 impacted operations?
SM: Promega has been making tools that are required for COVID-19-type tests typically in researching viruses and universally in all life science work. We’ve always been making the ingredients that could go into both from a research-understanding testing to some of the different diagnostic tests that are out there.
And we anticipated the increased needs as the coronavirus epidemic emerged in China. We are a global organization. We started being contacted from our branches overseas expressing the need for reagents and supplies. So Promega really began scaling up in manufacturing back in January because we knew the needs were going to be global. We wanted to address that and those needs early on.
I think we took lessons from those early days and those lessons learned really continue to help propel us forward. Just some of the other tweaks we’ve made – really going from running one shift five days a week to now we’re operating at three shifts seven days a week has also helped us to keep up with the scale of production.
WHN: What kind of supply-side issues are you facing in getting the materials to make these ingredients?
SM: The raw materials shortages are definitely happening. But Promega is also continuing to work with our critical suppliers. Because we manufacture so much in Madison, we’ve been working with our suppliers to increase our own purchase orders. And in some cases, we’re taking partial shipments where we need to do. So if we need to make smaller batches to continue to make products, we’re certainly doing that. So we’re being flexible on our end. But our operations team does not see any near-term issues of obtaining raw materials to keep up with testing for the next few months at a minimum.
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