The National Kidney Registry and Viracor Eurofins Announce Coronavirus COVID-19 Rapid Turnaround Transplant Testing for Donors and Recipients
The National Kidney Registry (NKR) and Viracor Eurofins announced a partnership today to deliver testing for Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19 disease) to NKR's vast network of Member Centers.
GREENWICH, Conn. and LEE'S SUMMIT, Mo., March 16, 2020 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- The National Kidney Registry (NKR) and Viracor Eurofins announced a partnership today to deliver testing for Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19 disease) to NKR's vast network of Member Centers. NKR is the largest paired exchange program in the world and serves approximately 100 transplant programs throughout the United States. NKR has relied on Eurofins' specialty transplantation laboratories, VRL Eurofins and Viracor Eurofins, for over seven years to process mission critical tests to support NKR's paired exchange operation. Viracor announced availability of its COVID-19 assay on March 13th following validation in accordance with the FDA Emergency Use Authorization Guidance.
"We are pleased to announce that thousands of COVID-19 test kits will arrive at NKR Member Centers by Thursday March 19th. These test kits can be used to test living donors, recipients of living donor organs and recipients of deceased donor organs. Our goal is to increase transplant safety for donors and recipients during this challenging time," Said Garet Hil, Founder and CEO, National Kidney Registry. "We are grateful for the rapid response from Eurofins in developing this solution and we are indebted to key members of our Medical Board for guiding us through this process. We are especially grateful to Dr. Robert Redfield at UW Madison for quickly overcoming a serious regulatory obstacle that had the potential to stop the roll-out of this solution."
Viracor Eurofins is thrilled to be working with NKR and believes that by combining resources we can play a pivotal role in helping transplant programs reduce COVID-19 risk for their donors and patients. Given the concerns surrounding COVID-19, particularly within immunosuppressed populations, like transplant recipients, we are pleased to support the transplant community as we work through this current healthcare challenge.
About the National Kidney Registry: The National Kidney Registry (http://www.kidneyregistry.org) is a nonprofit organization with the mission to save and improve the lives of people facing kidney failure by protecting living donors and increasing the quality, speed, and number of living donor transplants.
About Viracor Eurofins: Viracor Eurofins, a subsidiary of Eurofins Scientific, is a leader in specialty clinical diagnostics with over 35 years and 3000 test offerings in infectious diseases, transplantation, immunology and allergy, to aid diagnosis, treatment and monitoring. Viracor Eurofins is committed to helping medical professionals, transplant teams, reference laboratories and biopharmaceutical companies get results faster, when it matters most. For more information about the company and new test, please visit: https://www.viracor-eurofins.com/test-menu/8300-Coronavirus-SARS-CoV-2-RT-PCR.
About Eurofins - A global leader in bio-analysis: Eurofins Scientific is a global leader in food and pharmaceutical product testing, environmental testing and advanced clinical testing services. It employs over 47,000 staff at more than 800 laboratories in 47 countries.
SOURCE National Kidney Registry
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