Aegis, Walgreens Announce Expansion of COVID-19 Diagnostic Testing

Aegis Sciences and Walgreens announced an expansion of their arrangement for the performance of fast and accurate COVID-19 diagnostic testing as Walgreens further expands COVID-19 drive-thru testing nationwide. Together, the companies are in the process of increasing their testing services to provide additional testing capacity with best-in-class turnaround times across more than 3,000 Walgreens pharmacy locations in February. In the coming months, additional growth plans are anticipated.

“Aegis Sciences and Walgreens share a common goal: to provide nationwide access to fast and accurate COVID-19 testing. Aegis’s Real Time RT-PCR testing is the diagnostic gold standard with turnaround time of less than 24 hours,” said Dr. Frank Basile, Chief Executive Officer, Aegis Sciences Corporation. “We are excited to continue expanding our relationship over the coming months, offering this needed testing in more Walgreens locations and providing more Walgreens customers access to fast and accurate COVID-19 testing.”

“The expanded collaboration between Aegis Sciences and Walgreens further builds on our commitment to improve access to COVID-19 testing in the communities we serve,” said Rick Gates, Senior Vice President, Pharmacy at Walgreens. “With vaccine inventory still very limited, testing remains one of the best defenses against COVID-19 and the opportunity to stop further community spread.”

Since launching COVID-19 testing on April 15, 2020, Aegis has quickly increased testing capacity to meet the needs of communities across the United States. Early last fall, Aegis was selected to participate in the National Institutes of Health Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics (RADx) initiative and received an NIH grant to expand COVID-19 testing capacity to 60,000 tests per day by September 30, 2020. Since then, Aegis has further increased capacity and is currently able to perform over 100,000 tests per day within a targeted 24-hour or less turnaround time. In January 2021, Aegis was awarded an additional NIH grant due to the success in rapidly expanding its testing program, while maintaining its industry leading turnaround time.