DeWine Announces FDA Approval for a New testing Reagent

Governor DeWine announced Tuesday that a new testing reagent, which is a compound used to determine if COVID-19 is present in a sample, has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Because reagents have been extremely limited, Ohio and other states have had limited testing capacity. On Sunday, Governor DeWine spoke with officials at the FDA and asked them to approve new types of reagents to allow Ohio to expand testing. Today, the FDA approved a new version reagent for Thermo Fisher’s testing machines, which are used by most major labs in Ohio.

“This approval will greatly expand our state’s ability to increase our testing capacity,” said Governor DeWine. “We are also working with other companies to make additional reagent kits available so we can continue to ramp up testing in Ohio.”