COVID-19 Response

The Eurofins network’s response to COVID-19 – Eurofins invested massively as early as January 2020 to facilitate up to 20 million tests a month to support the continuity of essential services and economic activity, as well as the resumption of the travel and leisure industries following lockdowns.

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

Eurofins acted quickly to innovate a large range of new, urgently required tests and to ramp up testing capacity to support governments in safeguarding public health against COVID-19. As a result, in the spring and summer of 2020, Eurofins companies were able to offer game-changing support to several governments who were lacking the testing capacity to protect their populations and critical services.

From the onset of the health crisis, the priority of Eurofins leadership was to quickly mobilise all available scientific talent and resources across the network’s companies to keep societies safe, while supporting 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. Eurofins made heavy investments even though there was no certainty as to the volume of tests that would be required nor 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 worldwide 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 the testing capacities of Eurofins laboratories, 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 millions of others.

As the pandemic progressed, antibody testing began to play an increasingly important role by identifying those who may have been exposed to the virus, possibly without knowing, and allowing health authorities to evaluate population exposure and immune response. This provided insights that informed 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 had antibodies as a result of exposure to COVID-19. As part of this, Eurofins launched particularly fast, rapid, point-of-care finger-prick testing devices which could identify 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. This was particularly helpful for the development of vaccines, for instance. Furthermore, these assays were significant because variations in T-cell populations have been reported to provide insights into the outcome of disease progression, and these help doctors to plan for ICU (Intensive Care Unit) bed and ventilator capacity, especially in times of shortages.

During the initial outbreak of the virus, many governments across the world chose to “lock down” their economies and societies. Once economic and social activity began to pick up again, it was obvious that ongoing surveillance would be necessary to quickly identify any resurgence in COVID-19 cases and to 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 work site. Faeces from people infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus contain genetic material (RNA) from the virus, which can be detected in sewage and wastewater. Studies have shown wastewater testing to be capable of detecting a community COVID-19 prevalence rate as low as a 0.02% - 0.1% (i.e. between two virus shedders per 10,000 persons and one 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 university 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.

As well as 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 acid extraction kits and PCR kits for SARS-CoV-2 detection and specific variant identification, to kits for SARS-CoV-2 sequencing, antibody testing and T-cell monitoring, including equipment and point of care solutions. In addition to 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, allowed for much-needed additional testing capacity.

Throughout 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 Centre 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 this 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 in 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.

As well as testing for the virus, there were also many other areas where Eurofins companies 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, important chemical products, and the safe food, beverages and agricultural products sold on supermarket shelves, among many others.

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