manufactured · input
Nylon-fiber flocked swabs with perpendicular nanofibers enabling capillary-driven sample uptake. The preferred collection device for PCR-based respiratory pathogen testing. Pre-COVID, essentially all high-quality flocked NP swabs came from two manufacturers: Copan Diagnostics (Italy) and Puritan Medical Products (Maine, USA). Copan's FLOQSwab is patented (US patent 2003).
3
Source countries
2
Companies
1
Goods affected
0
Claims on record
What depends on it
1 essential American goods rely on nasopharyngeal flocked nylon swabs somewhere upstream in their supply chain.
Where it comes from
Share of global supply, by country.
| Country | Share of supply |
|---|---|
| ITItaly | 50% |
| USUnited States | 40% |
| CNChina | 10% |
Who makes it
2 companies produce nasopharyngeal flocked nylon swabs.
Brescia, Lombardy-based manufacturer that invented and patented flocked nasopharyngeal swab technology (FLOQSwab, 2003). Pre-COVID held ~50% of global NP swab supply. Located in the Lombardy region — the first European COVID epicenter — creating a catastrophic supply chain disruption when their workers were among the first hospitalized.
Family-owned manufacturer in Guilford and Pittsfield, Maine. Pre-COVID the only significant US domestic producer of flocked NP swabs. Received >$250M in combined US DoD and HHS funding to rapidly scale COVID swab production. Output scaled to millions of swabs/week during pandemic.
