For the past month, Noh Hyun-jung has worked 12 hours a day at the bottom of a science park in Daejeon, South Korea, spending most of his time sticking labels on plastic containers for chemical reagents used in Covid-19 tests.

This is not what this 35 year old man trained for. She is a highly qualified specialist in systems management, but one of the many technical experts of the biotechnology group Solgent who have been redeployed to jobs on the assembly line because the manufacturers of virus test kits have difficulty satisfying a torrent of orders from abroad.

“It is not my job,” said Ms. Noh, “but the workforce is so scarce that I have been helping production workers all day.”

South Korea has quickly become one of the world’s largest producers of coronavirus test kits after testing nearly half a million people has helped control what was once the worst epidemic in the world. outside of China.

Five Korean biotechnology groups have obtained government approval for the domestic sale of kits to detect current Covid-19 infection, called PCR tests. They are already producing enough kits to test around 135,000 people a day, according to the presidential office.

In total, South Korea has 22 companies producing Covid-19 test kits marketed, a number surpassed only by the United States and China, according to the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (Find), a non-profit group. which follows product development.

However, despite planning for rapid growth and the esprit de corps among workers, there are obvious signs of tension at the heart of the test kit supply chain.

Global demand for testing was estimated at around 700,000 a day in late March, analysts in Seoul said. But it is expected to increase sevenfold as the epidemic spreads and countries, including the United Kingdom, see the wisdom of South Korea’s strategy to expand testing to patients with severe breathing problems and people with mild or no symptoms.

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Seegene, a molecular diagnostic company in Seoul, has cut production of kits for 60 other diseases to focus on Covid-19 and is hiring 100 part-time workers to ease the pressure on its employees. It is building a new factory to make the kits, but has so far converted meeting rooms and offices into production lines.

“The demand from around the world far exceeds our supply,” said Noh Si-won, chief strategy officer, Seegene. Executives expect the company’s annual sales to increase nearly tenfold to Won1tn ($ 809 million) this year.

So far, more than 110 countries have searched for South Korean test kits. Requests emanate from all walks of life: governments, foreign health authorities, hospitals, laboratories, as well as multinational companies looking for kits for employees. Donald Trump, the American president, last month made a direct appeal to his Seoul counterpart, President Moon Jae-in.

A tight supply of chemicals needed in test kits is a growing concern © Lee Jae-Won / FT

Law changes after the country’s latest epidemic allowed the South Korean biotechnology sector to quickly turn to Covid-19 © Lee Jae-Won / FT



Pandemic-sensitive regulations are one of the main reasons that South Korea has been able to increase its domestic capacity. After the Mers epidemic in 2015, the country amended the law to speed up regulatory approvals during epidemics of infectious diseases, allowing its biotechnology sector to quickly focus on Covid-19 after reports of the first epidemic in Wuhan in January.

Highlighting the speed at which Korean groups have moved, Kogene Biotech began developing coronavirus test kits before South Korea had its first confirmed infection in January, using the Covid-19 genetic test code published by China. In February, the company obtained approval to sell its test kits within a week of request, and it now produces 10,000 test kits per week, each used to test 25 people. He plans to triple his production.

However, according to several Korean groups and an industry association, tight supplies of chemicals required in test kits are a growing concern for businesses, with emerging issues in the supply of key ingredients, including in the United States.

“We are short of raw materials due to the temporary delay in imports from abroad,” said Kim Kwang-chul, an official with BioSewoom, a group exporting kits to Indonesia and the Philippines.

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Solgent – which had 12 months of sales in March alone – uses an intermediary to export its kits to other regions in Asia, Europe and the United States, but many potential buyers from around the world are also contacting the business directly with desperate pleas.

“We receive more than 200 calls a day to request kits. . . it’s difficult to manage, ”said Park Sang-jin, director of Solgent.

On the company’s production line, where it packages kits in boxes, Lee Mi-hyun, 30, says: “We work overtime for almost three hours a day and come to work on weekends because we have to produce more. . . It is tiring, but I am glad that our exports are increasing so much. “