Operators assemble rapid diagnostic self-tests for Covid-19 under a marquee erected in the Biosynex car park, in Illkirch-Graffenstaden, December 29, 2021. (AFP / FREDERICK FLORIN)
Fighting action at the French leader in rapid diagnostic tests. Biosynex has hired 200 temporary workers to respond to a meteoric demand for self-tests driven by the records of Covid-19 contamination and the end-of-year celebrations.
To respond to orders, we had to make room. It is therefore under a large marquee, erected in the parking lot, that the company based in Illkirch-Graffenstaden, on the outskirts of Strasbourg, has set up its testing packaging workshop.
“I started yesterday. I have to check that all the elements are present in the pouch and add the instructions before boxing”, explains Audrey Margroff, 28, who is carrying out her first mission at Biosynex.
“I saw an ad on Facebook and they took me straight away, it was very easy. Apparently, they are looking for a lot of people”, explains the young woman, more used to missions in the food industry. than in the health sector.
Packaging is carried out on hastily assembled tables, simple melamine wood panels placed on pallets. Between 300,000 and 500,000 tests are packaged each day, intended for pharmacies and individuals, for the French and European markets.
Covid-19 rapid antigenic self-test boxes assembled by Biosynex, December 29, 2021 in Illkirch-Graffenstaden. (AFP / FREDERICK FLORIN)
“Demand is much higher today than at the start of the year”, explains Gaël Levy, the industrial director. “Self-test has become widespread among the general public and TRODs (rapid serological tests, editor’s note) continue to be in high demand. All this is accentuated by the implementation of the health pass in all European countries and, with the holidays, it exploded “.
Faced with the health crisis, the company has changed size, going from 140 to 240 employees. Turnover jumped from 34 million euros in 2019 to 225 million in the first half of 2021.
– Tour de France –
In the vast hangar where the boxes are piled up ready to be shipped, the delivery slips announce a world tour of pharmacies in short supply of tests: Le Havre, Puteaux, Hagondange, but also Brussels, Norway and even Malaysia.
“Beyond 1,000, the software no longer indicates the number of pending orders, it was not expected,” laughs Kerim Hayat, the deputy warehouse manager, looking at his computer. “So we don’t know exactly how many we are, but we blew up the counters!”.
An employee assembles boxes of rapid antigenic self-tests for Covid-19 at Biosynex, on December 29, 2021 in Illkirch-Graffenstaden. (AFP / FREDERICK FLORIN)
The daily life of his department has been shaken up, his teams are now working day and night. “There is fatigue, but we work in a good atmosphere,” she emphasizes. “It’s not like the first wave, we have professionalized, we manage to absorb the load in good conditions”.
In a few months, the number of trucks has increased tenfold, and yet delivery times have lengthened to a dozen days, against three in normal times.
“We lost three days with the Christmas weekend, and rebel in the New Year. It’s a lot in a period of tension,” observes M.Levy.
– Breaking waves –
To this already “exponential” demand has been added that of mass distribution players since the government authorized the sale of self-tests in supermarkets on Tuesday.
“I had requests for prices for volumes of a million, two million. The phone rings non-stop,” said Oren Bitton, sales director for Europe.
“But we believe that this is a premature decision: these are health products, we want them to be used well. The pharmacist’s advice is really justified, there is an ethic to be respected,” he says. .
An employee assembles rapid antigenic self-tests for Covid-19 at Biosynex, December 29, 2021 in Illkirch-Graffenstaden. (AFP / FREDERICK FLORIN)
While the record threshold of 200,000 daily contaminations was crossed Wednesday, Oren Bitton expects “a wave” for the weeks to come.
“There are going to be a lot of positive cases, which means a lot of contact cases, so we will have to go to a pharmacy or a laboratory to check his status. We plan to produce 20 million tests in January, including 10 million for France. “.
For a few days more, these tests are made with components imported from Asia, in particular the strip which is colored in the event of detection of the virus. But the company, beneficiary of the recovery plan, has invested in machines and plans to produce a “100% French” test from February.
© 2021 AFP
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