Abbott’s rapid COVID-19 antigen self-test, the BinaxNOW, is now widely available across the US at CVS Pharmacy, Walgreens, and Walmart without a prescription;

Dara Lo, Medical Analyst at GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, offers her view:

“The trend of moving from hospital lab-based testing to more rapid testing outside of that environment is going to see a huge boost from the wide, over-the-counter availability of Abbott’s rapid COVID-19 point-of-care (POC) antigen test. With POC diagnostics, consumers can get test results at a much faster rate, and in the comfort of their own homes.

“It’s difficult to do serial COVID-19 testing on PCR, where the consumer has to go to a testing site as it can cost $100, and takes between two to three days to get a test result. There is a clear benefit for rapid POC COVID-19 testing, which Abbott is well-positioned to fill. Abbott has globally sold $2.2bn of COVID-19 tests with rapid tests compromising roughly 85% of those sales.

“With no prescription needed to take the Abbott COVID-19 antigen test, GlobalData predicts that a large part of sales will go towards testing asymptomatic consumers who display no symptoms, and will be useful in serial testing for return to work or school, as well as serial testing in high risk environments, such as care homes.”