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Hitachi, Toshiba, Miraca join forces to double production of coronavirus antigen tests

Hitachi, Toshiba, Miraca join forces to double production of coronavirus antigen tests

Hitachi, Toshiba, Miraca to set up factory

Toincrease production of antigen-based coronavirus tests,Hitachi Ltd and Toshiba Corp will join forceswith Miraca Holdings to establish a new plant.

The alliance of the three big Japanese companies is being set up with the hope of doubling the production ofMiraca subsidiary Fujirebio's testing kits, andto help the country's effort to screen more people for the new virus.

The merger received approval from the government last month to increase the productionto 400,000 tests in a week.

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Hitachi will provide engineering expertise, while Toshiba will offer resources and facilities. The three companies issued a joint statement on Friday.

"We believe we can contribute in providing a system that enables prompt testing should second and third waves come," a Miraca spokeswoman said.

A new plant to make the kits will be established in Hokkaido prefecture, Japan`s northern island, and will start operations by December.

The alliance will promote Antigen tests that scan for proteins found on or inside a virus. For these tests, a sample is taken using swabs from nasal cavity, and it usually takes 10 to 30 minutes in getting a result.There are doubts being raised about the accuracy of these tests. The tests can detect the virus quickly but produce false negatives at a higher rate than the currently dominant polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests.

Japan has been lacking in performing coronavirus tests, and has faced criticism for the same. The country has nearly 17,000 cases and 910 known deaths till date.