Meridian Bioscience, Inc., a provider of diagnostic testing solutions and life science raw materials, will increase production capacity of the company's SARS-CoV-2 molecular diagnostic test on its Revogene platform after receiving a $5.5M award from the National Institute of Health Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics initiative.

According to company officials, the funding will help Meridian expand production of Revogene test kits in the Quebec City facility and build a new semi-automated, state-of-the-art, two-line production facility near the corporate headquarters in the Village of Newtown, Ohio.

Meridian also received a JobsOhio Economic Development Grant as part of its commitment to create 45 new jobs and invest more than $7 million in Ohio. The expansion will be completed in phases over the coming months and is expected to yield a maximum capacity of 800,000 Revogene tests per month by the end of calendar year 2021.

"We are excited to be in the final stages of bringing the Revogene SARS-CoV-2 assay to market,” said Tony Serafini-Lamanna, Executive Vice President - Diagnostics. “Our customers continue to search for more tests to battle this wave of the coronavirus pandemic and this support from our Federal, State and Local governments will be instrumental in scaling our manufacturing capacity.”

NIH launched the RADxSM initiative to speed innovation in developing, commercializing, and implementing technologies for COVID-19 testing. Meridian Bioscience is one of 27 projects that have moved to Phase 2, with a focus on scaling manufacturing to increase the capacity of testing in the U.S.

JobsOhio and REDI Cincinnati are partnering with Meridian to support its growth on the Meridian Bioscience campus. The Village of Newtown has also provided support to the project through tax abatements applied to the buildout of the newly leased facility.

“Meridian Bioscience’s investment near its Cincinnati headquarters is an example of how Ohio healthcare companies are front and center in the battle to defeat COVID-19,” said J.P. Nauseef, JobsOhio President and CEO. “We and our partners at REDI Cincinnati welcome this expansion at Meridian’s Newtown facility, where talented Ohioans will play a critical role bringing the newest advancements in COVID testing to the North American market.”

This project has been funded in part by the NIH Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics (RADxSM) initiative with Federal funds from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, National Institutes of Health under Contract No: 75N92021C00003. The current contract is funded from the Public Health and Social Services Emergency Fund through the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, Department of Health and Human Services.