Edinburgh biotech company offers free Covid-19 tests for NHS frontline staff whether or not they have symptoms

A CAPITAL-BASED biotech company is the first in Scotland to offer free coronavirus tests to frontline NHS workers, whether or not they have symptoms, in a bid to help stop them being super-spreaders.

Censo Biotechnologies will send out test kits on request for GPs and other health professionals to send back to their lab, with results available on the day they are received.

Censo - which is also working to find drugs to treat coronavirus - is the only Scottish lab so far to be part of the Covid-19 Volunteer Testing Network, which is supplementing the Government’s official testing programme.

The company’s chief executive Mike Hawthorne said: “At the moment in hospitals and GP surgeries, key workers are only getting tested when they are symptomatic.

“One of the big issues in this is there is a very significant proportion of people who get the virus are completely asymptomatic and in a GP surgery or A&E they could be a really good super-spreader.

“Our participation in this network will allow Scottish frontline staff whether they are presenting symptoms or not to be tested and tested as often as weekly.”

The tests will be available from Monday and the lab is preparing to process 500 a day. It will focus first on Edinburgh and the Lothians but will accept requests from all over Scotland.

“The idea is we have a network across Scotland at some point that operates locally.

“We are contacting GP surgeries with details of where to send samples but any hospital staff wishing to be tested simply need to contact us via email [email protected] with their employment details and we will send out a kit to them immediately.

“As soon as we receive the sample, we will be able to provide results the same day, free of charge.”

The company, based at Roslin, is also working with NHS Scotland to be able to augment their centralised testing programme as and when they are ready to do so and have offered the use of their 25-strong workforce of scientists to support NHS Scotland labs where possible.

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, Censo - whose main focus is on using stem cell technology to discover and develop new targeted treatments for diseases including Alzheimer’s and Motor Neurone Disease - was already working on developing a new anti-viral therapy which would combat a broad range of coronaviruses.