How Much Money Are At-Home Covid-19 Tests Bringing In?

Seven of the most prominent test makers are navigating a whiplash marketplace.

- AMY FELDMAN

As the Omicron wave of the pandemic swept across America this winter, makers of at-home Covid tests faced a unique business dilemma. Seemingly overnight, demand for their products became infinite. Massive government contracts were up for grabs. By mid-January, the Biden Administration had promised to buy 1 billion of the tests. But it was almost equally certain that demand for the tests would vanish— at least temporarily—by the time spring arrived.

Sunnyvale, California-based iHealth Labs, which only received FDA authorization for its test in November, churned out more than 500 million Covid-19 home test kits for the U.S. market in February an astronomical increase over the 20 million to 30 million it produced in December. “We cranked up very quickly,” says iHealth chief operating officer Jack Feng. “It was almost like a battle.”

It was a whole new line of business for iHealth, which is majority-owned by China’s publicly traded Andon Health and made stuff like blood-pressure monitors and thermometers before the pandemic. Its contract manufacturer in Tianjin, China, also owned by Andon, made kits round-the-clock and even stayed open with partial staff on Chinese New Year’s. To help get the tests to the States, iHealth chartered 100 airplanes. Some 350 million of its antigen tests went to fulfill its government contracts, which are worth more than $1.3 billion, with the rest going to drugstores and other retailers.