Helping meet PCR test demand for Coronavirus, II-VI boosts manufacturing capacity

II-VI Incorporated (Pittsburgh, PA), which provides lasers, optics, thermoelectrics, and subassemblies for the life sciences market, is ramping up its manufacturing capacity of components and subassemblies for molecular diagnostic testing systems, specifically those that underpin the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing platforms.

The increasing deployment of PCR test equipment at the point of care is driving the accelerating demand for the company’s precision subsystems that integrate its thermoelectric and optical components and allow the rapid replication and identification of target genetic sequence. It is ramping up its global manufacturing and supply chain to produce thermoelectric subassemblies, across its global manufacturing footprint, to meet the recent and anticipated sustained surge in demand in the PCR system supply chain due to the spread of the novel Coronavirus (COVID-19). 

PCR systems have challenging requirements for simultaneously applying a highly uniform and rapid rate of temperature change across the genetic sample to drive replication. The company’s thermoelectric products, designed in Dallas, TX and manufactured in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, meet both the stringent performance requirements and the reliability endurance of hundreds of thousands of rapid temperature cycles. 

Leveraging its advanced optical coating capabilities in Santa Rosa, CA, the company designs and manufactures optical filters with high transmission, steep slopes, and deep out-of-band blocking, enabling PCR systems to achieve very high sensitivity in detecting viral genetic material. It is dedicating additional coating machines to meet the PCR-driven production ramp requirements. 

For more information, please visit ii-vi.com.