Yourgene secures Department of Health contract to support COVID-19 surge testing

Biotech company Yourgene has been awarded a major contract by the Department of Health & Social Care to provide lab capacity to the NHS Test and Trace Programme for COVID-19 testing.

In April, the Manchester-headquartered company announced it was successful in securing tenders under Public Health England’s National Microbiology Framework for Lots 1-4 and was one of only three companies to successfully be awarded all four.

This meant public health authorities across the UK were able to issue call-off contracts to procure goods and testing services from Yourgene.

This latest deal is the first to come of the National Microbiology Framework Lot wins announced earlier this year, using Yourgene’s automated COVID-19 services testing laboratory in Citylabs 1.0, Manchester.

CEO Lyn Rees said: “We are delighted to have been awarded this first contract from the framework, supporting the Government’s testing needs utilising our recently completed high throughput COVID-19 diagnostic testing laboratory.”

The announcement comes a week after Yourgene revealed that it had achieved its best first quarter performance in the current financial year, with an 80% increase in revenues of more than £6m.

The firm said this was driven by Covid-related services and product sales as the UK economy reopened.