To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the availability of peer reviewed papers containing clinical trial data to demonstrate (a) the efficacy and (b) the scalability of the DNA Nudge covid-19 test.

The DNANudge COVID-19 test was reviewed by the expert panel of the Department’s Technologies Validation Group. The Group reviews peer reviewed papers where they exist, but for DNANudge, at the time that it was initially reviewed, no published papers were available although a preprint of a paper that has subsequently been published was studied. DNANudge has also has obtained a derogation from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, so they are approved by the Agency

There is significant work underway between Department and the National Health Service to understand the technical specifications of the DNA Nudgebox machines and how these could best support NHS pathways.