Exposing NHS Covid testing sell-out to the USA
“The company with the largest single Covid-related contract to date looks to be among the most questionable of the many previously unheard-of recipients of pandemic deals. US company Innova Medical Group Inc has contracts worth £496m and £138m for the “lateral flow” tests piloted in Liverpool and set to roll out under Operation Moonshot, plus student, care home and other testing programmes.
“Innova, which distributes tests made in Fujian province, China, has teamed up with a small company in Wellingborough, Northants, called Disruptive Nanotechnology Ltd. The firm rebranded itself “Tried & Tested” – but without much justification. What little activity can be seen since it set up in 2015 is an unsuccessful attempt to sell LightCleanse, a technology coating surfaces in titanium dioxide that reacts with light to produce oxidants to clean the surface.
“Health concerns seem to have scuppered it. On latest figures (to December 2018) the firm was technically insolvent, with debts exceeding assets by a couple of thousand pounds. It is run by directors Kim Thonger and Charles Palmer, whose careers have taken in shoe retail and property respectively”.
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