In March 11th, the State Council issued the notice on the issuance of the COVID-19 virus antigen detection application plan (Trial Implementation) to the comprehensive group of New Coronavirus pneumonia epidemic prevention and control mechanism, and decided to add antigen detection on the basis of nucleic acid detection.
The plan also stipulates the applicable groups for antigen testing: first, those who go to grass-roots medical and health institutions with respiratory tract, fever and other symptoms within 5 days; Second, isolate observers, including those in home isolation observation, close connection and secondary close connection, entry isolation observation, sealing and control area and control area; Third, community residents who need antigen self-test.
So far, five covid-19 antigen self-test products in Nanjing Nanjing Vazyme Biotech Co.Ltd(688105) , Beijing jinwofu, Shenzhen Huada Yinyuan, Guangzhou Guangzhou Wondfo Biotech Co.Ltd(300482) , and Beijing huaketai biology have been approved for listing in China.
The covid-19 antigen detection kit sold on meituan app is Beijing jinwofu antigen detection kit (latex method), and the price for one person is 32.8 yuan Nanjing Vazyme Biotech Co.Ltd(688105) antigen detection kit (colloidal gold method) for 20 people, with a pre-sale price of 486 yuan; Users can conduct home self-test according to the product manual, and the results can be observed in 15 to 20 minutes.
In terms of sales channels, Lbx Pharmacy Chain Joint Stock Company(603883) pharmacy, Guoda pharmacy, Gaoji medical, Haiwang Xingchen, Dashenlin Pharmaceutical Group Co.Ltd(603233) pharmacy, quanyuantang pharmacy and other chain pharmacies will launch covid-19 antigen self-test products simultaneously with offline pharmacies.
is product pricing expensive
There is no doubt that covid-19 antigen self-test is an important supplement to nucleic acid test, but for at present, the main concern of consumer terminals is the price , many consumers said: “the price of self-test is too expensive compared with nucleic acid test, the result of self-test may not be as good as nucleic acid test, and who will pay for free nucleic acid self-test…”
having these questions may just prove that the questioner is not the real demand terminal at this time
more importantly, China adheres to the general strategy of “external defense input and internal defense rebound”, the general policy of “dynamic zeroing” and the monitoring mode of “antigen screening and nucleic acid diagnosis”. Behind these strategies to improve the sensitivity of monitoring and early warning is the national will. Covid-19 antigen self-test is mandatory on the way of implementation
So is it expensive or not? It depends on several main demand parties:
first, failure to inspect due to insufficient human and material resources
second, detect local areas with high pressure and conduct rapid troubleshooting
third, fast detection of large mobile people such as business travel
fourth, residents with respiratory tract, fever and other symptoms who need self inspection
It can be seen that these demand ends have similar characteristics: mandatory and necessary. Therefore, as a necessity in a specific environment, the price can become insensitive
market space estimation
Huaan Securities Co.Ltd(600909) believes that covid-19 antigen detection has high social value in large-scale and rapid screening and detection. Residents can purchase detection reagents by themselves and conduct self inspection at home, avoiding the inconvenience of waiting for nucleic acid detection results for a long time, reducing the exposure risk in the detection process, and solving the difficulty of nucleic acid detection in remote and grass-roots areas.
It is estimated that from a rational perspective, combined with three types of application scenarios, grass-roots medical and health institutions demand about 5.5 billion yuan in diagnosis and treatment and testing market, about 2.5 billion yuan for isolated observers and about 24.9 billion yuan for self inspection by community residents, with an overall total of more than 30 billion yuan and from the long-term perspective, assuming that the society under the normalization of covid-19 is open, it can be divided into static self-test and dynamic large-scale test according to the application scenarios of covid-19 antigen detection. In a comprehensive view, the market scale of antigen detection in the long-term perspective is 270 billion yuan.
China covid-19 antigen detection product trends
So far, 10 covid-19 antigen self-test products have been officially launched.
As of March 13, 2022, five covid-19 antigen detection products in China have been approved, namely Beijing Wantai Biological Pharmacy Enterprise Co.Ltd(603392) , Beijing Hotgen Biotech Co.Ltd(688068) , Tianjin BIOSIS, Chongqing Mingdao jietest biology and Beijing Lepu diagnostics. Among them, 3 products of colloidal gold and latex method and 2 methods of fluorescence immunochromatography were approved.
Previously, the State Food and drug administration has approved the application change of covid-19 antigen product self-test application of Nanjing Nanjing Vazyme Biotech Co.Ltd(688105) , Beijing jinwofu, Shenzhen Huada Yinyuan, Guangzhou Guangzhou Wondfo Biotech Co.Ltd(300482) , Beijing huaketai biology.
In addition, many listed companies have submitted registration applications to the State Drug Administration.
Looking at the demand of upstream and downstream industries for co19-antigen detection, it is expected to jointly benefit from the demand of upstream and downstream core products.
Source: public information and star mining data
In conclusion, compared with nucleic acid detection, antigen detection has the advantages of fast speed, low cost, more convenient and more comprehensive penetration. At present, the overseas prevention and control industry is also dominated by self-test. With the normalization of covid-19 antigen detection and the increase in the number of approved covid-19 prevention and treatment drugs, the overall prosperity of the industrial chain is expected to maintain.
