Shao Junbin, Zhijiang Biological: The shortage of antigen reagent market has basically eased, and the company's capacity is still expanding

"It is the king's way to expand the production of antigen reagents in Shanghai in an automatic and digital way. The company has built up the productivity and expanded the production in place, so that at least the local antigen demand in Shanghai can be satisfied."

On January 12, Shao Junbin, member of the Shanghai Municipal Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and founder and chairman of Shanghai Zhijiang Biotechnology Co., Ltd.

Founded in 2005, Shanghai Zhijiang Biotechnology Co., Ltd., as a high-tech enterprise specializing in the research, development, production and sales of genetic diagnostic reagents and instruments, is one of the leading enterprises in the production of molecular diagnostic reagents in China. On January 26, 2020, the company became one of the first batch of certified enterprises of novel coronavirus nucleic acid detection kit in China.

"The company's production of antigen reagents is still expanding." Shao Junbin told reporters that since the epidemic, the company has worked overtime to produce antigen detection reagents, with an average capacity of only 300000 people at the earliest, and has now reached 1.2 million to 1.5 million people.

"The automatic production of antigen reagent production line requires the combination of hardware, software, electrical appliances, etc., and the corresponding debugging. In addition, there are certain requirements for the external environment and site, so the expansion of production line needs a certain period, about 10 to 15 days." Shao Junbin further pointed out that compared with other regions, the production line factories in Shanghai are mainly faced with the problems of difficult recruitment and high labor costs, Therefore, the company focuses on automatic production of antigen production line. However, the expansion of automatic production will be more difficult. First of all, the production environment should be clean workshop. In addition, the humidity should be strictly controlled within 30%, and the requirements for air conditioning system and dehumidification system are very high.

With regard to the advantages of automatic expansion, Shao Junbin said that the expansion needs to increase plants and machines, and requires certain economic investment in the early stage. Once the production capacity is reached, it does not need to rely too much on people, especially in terms of quality controllability.

Shao Junbin also said that the expansion of the automatic production equipment of the above-mentioned antigen reagent production line could be connected with the continuous small peak of infection in the short term. In the long run, these devices can also be used to produce detection products for other diseases, such as influenza, AIDS, etc., with more stable economic value.

With regard to the recovery progress of the antigen reagent market, Shao Junbin said that the shortage of the antigen reagent market has been basically alleviated. At present, the company's online direct sales channels have been able to deliver goods normally and quickly. "For Internet sales channels, we are particularly supportive. They are delivered directly to the terminal without passing through other agents or intermediary platforms, reducing time delay."

Previously, many dealers scrambled for orders at the factory gate of the antigen manufacturer. In response, Shao Junbin told the surging news reporter that the antigen reagent had indeed become very tense due to the first wave of infection after the liberalization, and now it has basically eased and gradually returned to normal.