Eli Lilly and Co. announced Wednesday that the pharmaceutical giant will help Indiana increase its COVID-19 testing capability.

The company said its research laboratories will analyze samples taken in Indiana health care facilities, such as nursing homes and emergency rooms, to help the state determine whether those who suspect they have the virus are in fact infected.

Those at greatest risk from COVID-19 will still be given testing priority.

Within a week, Lilly could be doing about 1,000 tests a day, said Dr. Daniel Skovronsky, the company’s chief scientific officer and president of Lilly Research Laboratories. Eventually the Lilly labs could run as many as 2,000 tests a day and pilot a drive-thru clinic for those with a doctor’s order.

The test will be free of charge for patients, insurers, hospitals and government agencies, said David A. Ricks, Lilly’s chairman and chief executive officer.

“This is one contribution we can make to help slow the spread of coronavirus in our community,” he said. “Today we are marshaling our people and our assets to confront and defeat the novel coronavirus in our state.”

Unlike other private labs that can take days to return test results, the Lilly test result should be available either the same day or overnight, Skovronsky said. The actual testing process will only take four to six hours. Samples will be run in batches.

State health officials greeted the news that Lilly’s entry into testing could be a game changer.

“I am confident that this is a key step forward in making testing for COVID-19 more available,” said Indiana State Health Commissioner Kris Box in a news conference announcing the public-private partnership, the first of its kind in the country. “We are definitely much better positioned than we have been in the past several weeks.”

An Indiana hospital system will soon be doing its own testing for the virus, she said. IU Health officials have mentioned plans to have their labs test, but a spokesman for the health system said Wednesday that they have been using the state lab and will continue to do so for "a while."

The Health Department, as well as the nation as a whole, has come under scrutiny for not having sufficient testing for the new coronavirus, especially compared with other countries that have offered rampant, rapid testing.

With no vaccine or drugs to fight the virus, testing and social distancing methods are among the few tools public health systems have to fight it.

“Our best course of action right now is to slow transmission and thereby avoid overwhelming our health care systems,” Skovronsky said. “Testing is necessary to track the spread of infection and ensure proper treatment.”

Once Lilly starts offering its test, Box said, priority will still be given to health care workers and those at greatest risk from COVID-19. Even a drive-thru clinic would not necessarily mean that everyone who wanted a test would get one because other supplies like nasal swabs and personal protective equipment could be limited.

One factor hobbling testing efforts across the country has been supplies of reagents, compounds critical to running the tests. Lilly officials offered the caveat that the plans to expand testing rest on the ability to access the required reagents.

However, Skovronsky said that the Lilly test uses different reagents than those that the state uses and that the company has been able to produce some of its own reagents.

Lilly officials said that while the company has redirected some of its efforts to address the coronavirus outbreak, it would not affect the company’s ability to manufacture medicines such as insulin.

Contact IndyStar reporter Shari Rudavsky at 317-444-6354 or shari.rudavsky@indystar.com. Follow her on Facebook and on Twitter: @srudavsky.