The Swiss group Roche has delivered 925 million Sars-CoV-2 tests worldwide since the beginning of the corona pandemic. A spokeswoman for Roche Diagnostics Germany did not want to comment on the absolute prices. They have been kept stable. There are no delivery bottlenecks. “The warehouses are full. We deliver continuously and consistently,” she said in a video conversation. Roche supplies both PCR and antibody and antigen tests. With the increasing number of infections, the demand is also increasing exponentially. The current tests are not influenced by the Omikron variant, despite the mutations “they still recognize an infection”. The Roche subsidiary TIB Molbiol has already developed tests for variants for research applications.
He is personally in favor of compulsory vaccination, says Claus Haberda, managing director of Roche Diagnostics GmbH. For him it is a question of solidarity. According to Haberda, a general compulsory vaccination could lead to a “postponement” of the tests, because then there is likely to be a greater demand for antibody tests to determine how strong the vaccination protection is and when it makes sense to re-vaccinate. Ulrich Opitz, head of the Roche plant in Penzberg, Bavaria, said: In addition, it is not yet foreseeable whether 2G + will apply to certain events and areas despite vaccinations and boosters, i.e. also antigen test for vaccinated and convalescent people. The diagnostics division of the Swiss group had increased its sales in the first nine months of 2021 compared to the same period of the previous year by 38 percent to 13.3 billion francs.