HHS will invest $6.5 million in two commercial diagnostic labs to expand COVID-19 testing capacity to 4 million more tests per month, it said Aug. 13.
The department is investing in Aegis Sciences Corporation, based in Nashville, Tenn., and Sonic Healthcare USA, based in Austin, Texas.
As part of the investment, Beckman Coulter Life Sciences and Thermo Fisher Scientific will supply the labs with equipment. The money also will help the labs boost staffing and infrastructure.
Aegis said it will expand its lab workforce and begin building lab space in Nashville to meet its goal of processing more than 60,000 test samples per day by next month.
The investment will allow the U.S. to perform 1 million more tests a week by early October, HHS said.
Read the full news release here.