CEO: SYNLAB can double number of COVID-19 tests next year

CEO Rainar Aamisepp says that the company has been working 24/7 in three shifts for the past nine months. Photo: Mihkel Maripuu

It has been a busy year for SYNLAB laboratories. CEO Rainar Aamisepp says that the company has been working 24/7 in three shifts for the past nine months. SYNLAB laboratories have analyzed over eight million tests around 10 percent of which tied to the coronavirus pandemic. The company has increased its staff by 40 percent and will likely double its sales revenue compared to last year. What is happening in the trenches of the coronavirus front lines?

How many samples is SYNLAB analyzing today and how are they divided between Estonia and Finland?

SYNLAB’s testing capacity currently stands at 8,000-10,000 daily samples, while we realistically analyze 5,000-6,000 tests every day. The volume has remained around 30,000 weekly tests over the last four weeks. This makes up less than a tenth of all tests analyzed by SYNLAB’s Tallinn laboratory.

We implemented a technical process similar to what we have in our Tallinn laboratory in Finland in early October, with the addition of some automation improvements. We analyze roughly 50,000 weekly tests there most of which have been commissioned by the Finnish state. All in all, we have analyzed over 750,000 COVID-19 PCR tests in our Tallinn laboratory of which 420,000 for Estonia.

How many people are working on coronavirus tests?

We have 650 people on testing all over Estonia. Around 350 collect samples and register people for testing, over 110 people are working in our call center, with 80 people in three shifts in charge of the actual testing in our Tallinn lab. We also have 40 people in home testing squads, 30 drivers for transporting samples and 70 people providing support services. We signed a contract with Tallink this week with whom we trained 60 customer service administrators to support our public testing call center.

You are planning to analyze almost twice as many tests next year. Do you have enough lab technicians and bioanalysts?

We aim to boost our capacity to 15,000-20,000 daily tests by the start of next year. We will achieve this mainly through additional automation of processes, while we will also need more people. For our molecular biology lab, testing and handling and customer service.

We have been contacted from the UK, the Netherlands and Sweden and asked if we can analyze samples in our Tallinn laboratory. There is more demand than supply in Europe for analyzing SARS-CoV-2 PCR tests, while requirements in terms of speed and availability of results are becoming more stringent. I believe Estonia has no reason to be ashamed here – testing is available everywhere and our sampling and testing capacity is sufficient.

SYNLAB has grown its staff from 270 people in late February to 380 by the end of October. We are constantly looking for and hiring new employees through acquaintance, job ads and recommendations. We have been given a hand by other companies, for example, we recently signed a cooperation agreement with the Food and Fermentation Technology Development Center for involving their trained specialists in our work processes.

A lab technician as a highly educated specialist is paid more than the Estonian average salary. Our employees also handle more night and weekend shifts during the pandemic and are compensated for overtime.

The Health Board has entrusted SYNLAB and Medicum with almost all of testing in Estonia. What is the competition situation, are market participants too few?

There are just enough service providers to satisfy demand. We offer a wider range of services, while hospital laboratories also have considerable PCR testing capacity that is used mainly for their inpatient and outpatient care.

The Health Board recently signed contracts until 2021 for SARS-CoV-2 testing with SYNLAB and Medicum. The procurement could end up costing €100 million. What other tenders are you participating in?

The State Support Services Center procurement does not mean we will see that money, it is merely the maximum sum allocated for testing. We will be testing based on the viral situation and number of referrals.

In addition to the Health Board’s public COVID-19 testing procurement, we also entered a bid and won the prisons lab analyses tender and East Tallinn Central Hospital’s COVID-19 testing services procurement.

How are things in your recently opened lab in Finland?

We have opened a sister laboratory for analyzing infectious diseases using automated processes in Finland that is currently busy mainly with coronavirus samples. It currently hosts over 20 employees of SYNLAB’s Tallinn laboratory who are directly involved with nasopharyngeal testing for SARS-CoV-2.

Finland has allocated €1.4 billion for coronavirus testing. How much of it could reach your labs?

Around €100-150 million of the coronavirus testing support package will be coming our way. We have created the capacity to analyze over three million test samples over 10 months since the start of October.

How do you use robots for analysis?

Robots are a part of our routine work process. We have dropper robots, as well as those that unscrew test vials and replace caps once the work is done. We also have software in charge of work processes management and control.

Is Estonia testing too much? Only around every 12th person tests positive.

We are definitely not testing too much considering we are in a phase of rapid transmission of the virus. Looking at the statistics of the past three or four weeks, the weight of positive test results has grown from 5 percent to 10. Whereas testing volumes have remained the same. If we compare SARS-CoV-2 testing statistics in Estonia to that of our neighbors, we see that Lithuania and Sweden are testing slightly more people per 1,000 residents and Latvia and Finland slightly fewer. With the virus spreading actively, testing is the best method we have for staying on top of the situation.

How is antibody testing coming along and why is it being done?

We have been testing for IgG antibodies since May and started looking for IgM antibodies in October. We test venous blood to determine whether the person has had COVID-19 (IgG) or is in the late stages of the disease (IgM). We do not recommend testing for antibodies in venous blood sooner than three weeks after symptoms manifested or a positive PCR test. Unfortunately, the test cannot tell us how long these antibodies will protect us from being infected again, while they can tell us whether we’ve had the virus.

How will your work change once inoculation starts on a mass scale?

It will not change much, at least in the early stages of immunization. We forecast the need to keep testing 24/7 and on a large scale for at least the next 12-18 months. It is clear that starting vaccinations will bring relief, while preventing new waves of the virus requires 70-80 percent of people to be vaccinated. We also know that people are tired of the pandemic and cannot wait to return to normal life. For example, I cannot see air traffic and traveling recovering without obligatory coronavirus testing inside the next 12 months.

What about other viral diseases that pester Estonians in fall?

They are much less common this year, courtesy of improved hygiene. Children who go to school and do not wear masks still pick up the odd rhinovirus.