CENTOGENE Opens Walk-In COVID-19 Testing Facility at Hamburg Airport

August 19, 2020 |

7 min read

Centogene N.V., a commercial-stage company focused on rare diseases that transforms real-world clinical and genetic data into actionable information for patients, physicians, and pharmaceutical companies, announced the opening of its new walk-in COVID-19 test facility at Hamburg Airport.

CENTOGENE expands its SARS-CoV-2 testing solution to Hamburg Airport after successfully launching the first walk-in COVID-19 test facility at Frankfurt Airport in June 2020 in cooperation with Lufthansa
Company’s PCR tests now available for passengers departing from Hamburg, and returning to Hamburg from non-risk countries only, as well as the general public
Expansion of testing to Hamburg Airport further paves the way towards a new normal for our societies and economies

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. and ROSTOCK, Germany and BERLIN, Aug. 19, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Centogene N.V. (Nasdaq: CNTG), a commercial-stage company focused on rare diseases that transforms real-world clinical and genetic data into actionable information for patients, physicians, and pharmaceutical companies, announced today the opening of its new walk-in COVID-19 test facility at Hamburg Airport.

CENTOGENE is now offering coronavirus testing at Hamburg airport for all individuals who need to perform a COVID-19 test, including returning travelers from non-risk countries. Passengers can now be conveniently tested daily from 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. CEST directly at the test center located at Terminal 1. The Hamburg walk-in COVID-19 test facility is also open to the general public. For more information, visit https://www.centogene.com/covid-19/test-centers/hamburg-airport.html

“Traveling is essential for both, our economy and society,” said Dr. Volkmar Weckesser, CENTOGENE’s Chief Information Officer. “By working together with Hamburg Airport, we have proven our blueprint works to continue facilitating widespread testing – enabling safe international travel and preventing a further outbreak of the novel Coronavirus.”

“We very much welcome that our passengers now have the opportunity to have themselves tested directly in Hamburg. In these special times, it is particularly important that travel is safe and yet comfortable,” said Dr. Björn Becker, Senior Director Product Management Ground & Digital Services Lufthansa Group.

Dedicated to the Highest Quality Testing to Restore Air Travel

CENTOGENE is dedicated to providing quality testing to prevent a further outbreak and restore air travel. The test detects an infection of SARS-CoV-2 by detecting specific RNA molecules that originate from the genome of the disease-causing coronavirus. The diagnostic procedure includes: RNA extraction, transcription of the RNA into complementary DNA (cDNA) by means of reverse transcription, and amplification (multiplication) of virus-specific cDNA by means of polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The presence of cDNA in the amplification product shows that virus particles were in the sample, and thus indicates an active infection with SARS-CoV-2.

The method used is based on the published method by Prof. Drosten (Charité, Berlin). This test is referred to in the WHO documents as the “WHO Charité” test. The analytical steps and in particular the target sequences used to detect the viral RNA by RT-PCR correspond exactly to the publication by Corman, Bleicker, Brünink, Drosten, Landt, Koopmans, Zambon from January 17, 2020, and were validated in interlaboratory tests, as well as in cooperation with the laboratory by Prof. Drosten. The test has also been validated in CENTOGENE’s CAP / CLIA / ISO certified analytical laboratory and has received Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use by authorized laboratories.

As part of the comprehensive test solution, individuals can register for testing using a secure SARS-CoV-2 Test Portal – following stringent data privacy measures, while delivering time-sensitive diagnostics. CENTOGENE acts in compliance with the current specifications of GDPR (German Data Protection Regulation ‘Datenschutzgrundverordnung’) and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

About CENTOGENE

CENTOGENE engages in diagnosis and research around rare diseases transforming real-world clinical and genetic data into actionable information for patients, physicians, and pharmaceutical companies. Our goal is to bring rationality to treatment decisions and to accelerate the development of new orphan drugs by using our extensive rare disease knowledge, including epidemiological and clinical data, as well as innovative biomarkers. CENTOGENE has developed a global proprietary rare disease platform based on our real-world data repository with approximately 3.0 billion weighted data points from over 530,000 patients representing over 120 different countries as of March 31, 2020.

The Company’s platform includes epidemiologic, phenotypic, and genetic data that reflects a global population, and also a biobank of these patients’ blood samples. CENTOGENE believes this represents the only platform that comprehensively analyzes multi-level data to improve the understanding of rare hereditary diseases, which can aid in the identification of patients and improve our pharmaceutical partners’ ability to bring orphan drugs to the market. As of March 31, 2020, the Company collaborated with 39 pharmaceutical partners covering over 45 different rare diseases.

Important Notice and Disclaimer

This press release contains statements that constitute “forward looking statements” as that term is defined in the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements that express the Company’s opinions, expectations, beliefs, plans, objectives, assumptions or projections regarding future events or future results, in contrast with statements that reflect historical facts. Examples include discussion of our strategies, financing plans, growth opportunities and market growth. In some cases, you can identify such forward-looking statements by terminology such as “anticipate,” “intend,” “believe,” “estimate,” “plan,” “seek,” “project” or “expect,” “may,” “will,” “would,” “could” or “should,” the negative of these terms or similar expressions. Forward looking statements are based on management’s current beliefs and assumptions and on information currently available to the Company. However, these forward-looking statements are not a guarantee of our performance, and you should not place undue reliance on such statements. Forward-looking statements are subject to many risks, uncertainties and other variable circumstances, such as negative worldwide economic conditions and ongoing instability and volatility in the worldwide financial markets, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on our business and results of operations, possible changes in current and proposed legislation, regulations and governmental policies, pressures from increasing competition and consolidation in our industry, the expense and uncertainty of regulatory approval, including from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, our reliance on third parties and collaboration partners, including our ability to manage growth and enter into new client relationships, our dependency on the rare disease industry, our ability to manage international expansion, our reliance on key personnel, our reliance on intellectual property protection, fluctuations of our operating results due to the effect of exchange rates or other factors. Such risks and uncertainties may cause the statements to be inaccurate and readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such statements. Many of these risks are outside of the Company’s control and could cause its actual results to differ materially from those it thought would occur. The forward-looking statements included in this press release are made only as of the date hereof. The Company does not undertake, and specifically declines, any obligation to update any such statements or to publicly announce the results of any revisions to any such statements to reflect future events or developments, except as required by law.

For further information, please refer to the Risk Factors section in our Annual Report for the year ended December 31, 2019 on Form 20-F filed with the SEC on April 23, 2020 and other current reports and documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). You may get these documents by visiting EDGAR on the SEC website at www.sec.gov.

Photos accompanying this announcement are available at:

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Media Contact: CENTOGENE Ben Legg Corporate Communications press@centogene.com FTI Consulting Bridie Lawlor +1.917.929.5684 bridie.lawlor@fticonsulting.com