Abbott Laboratories (NYSE: ABT) stock rose over 8.2% in this week (Source: Finviz.com) but trading subdued today, falling over 0.1%. Abbott emerged as one of the top players in the COVID-19 diagnostics market. The company now has six coronavirus tests on the market in the U.S. In the first half of 2020, the company’s COVID-19 tests generated sales of $652 million. That aggregate will about certainly increase significantly due to ABT’s newest product. The company has recently announced FDA emergency use authorization for a rapid COVID-19 antibody test, BinaxNOW. This test is priced at $5, provides results in 15 minutes, and doesn’t require any instrumentation. While BinaxNOW could turbocharge Abbott’s coronavirus-related revenue, the healthcare giant claims several other growth drivers. Freestyle Libre 2 ranks at the top of the list. There is emphasis on the importance of rapid antigen tests like BinaxNOW since it eliminates lengthy waiting times. COVID-19 cases are still surging in the US and the widespread delays for lab-based testing results are causing issues since people have to know whether they need to self-isolate or not.

Moreover, the company is in the process of testing its rapid coronavirus test on asymptomatic people in order to get to the next step of expanding FDA authorization. The US government had bagged a deal for about 150 million of ABT’s tests valued at $760 million with the plans to deploy it at nursing homes and schools. The company will start shipping tens of millions of tests in September, and intends to ramp up production to supply 50 million tests per month at the beginning of October. Under the FDA’s EUA, the BinaxNOW COVID-19 Ag Card can be used only by medical professionals, that includes the doctors, nurses, school nurses, medical assistants and technicians, pharmacists, employer occupational health specialists, etc., which are in point-of-care settings operating under CLIA (Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments) approval.

On the other hand, the integrated continuous glucose monitoring system (iCGM) won FDA clearance in June. Its predecessor has posted sales of about $1.2 billion in the first half of 2020, up 50% year over year. Other products are also important to ABT ‘s growth, including mitral regurgitation device MitraClip and the Alinity line of diagnostics systems. Further, growth in emerging markets should drive ABT’s nutritional and established pharmaceuticals sales higher over the next decade and beyond.