Senator Collins Visits COVID-19 Test Manufacturing Plant in Westbrook

Westbrook, ME – Today, U.S. Senator Susan Collins toured Abbott’s COVID-19 test manufacturing plant in Westbrook.  The visit included a tour of the site and a meeting with representatives from the health care company.  Abbott’s BinaxNOW test continues to be the #1 rapid antigen test in the United States.  The company employs approximately 2,000 people at its facilities in Westbrook and Scarborough.

Senator Collins previously visited Abbott’s manufacturing plant in Scarborough in 2018.  When the pandemic began in 2020, Abbott expanded into the site of a former warehouse building in Westbrook and converted it to office, laboratory, manufacturing, and storage space in just over 60 days.  All of the work was done by Maine companies.  In an effort to keep up with rising cases, Abbott announced in November that it was scaling-up manufacturing to produce 100 million tests per month across its U.S. network.  The Westbrook plant alone produces tens of millions of BinaxNOW tests every month.

“Throughout the pandemic, Abbott’s dedicated employees have worked tirelessly around the clock to produce rapid tests for Americans across the country.  As cases continue to skyrocket, rapid testing remains a critical public health tool to reduce the spread of the virus, which has helped local school districts across Maine return to in-person learning and enabled Mainers to resume their daily lives more quickly,” said Senator Collins. “I was delighted to visit Abbott’s COVID-19 test manufacturing plant in Westbrook to thank employees for their hard work and see firsthand the progress Abbott has made to ramp up production. Protecting the health and safety of the American people during the pandemic remains my top priority.”

“It was an honor to host Senator Collins and show her the investments we’ve made in our people and facilities,” said Andrea F. Wainer, executive vice president of Abbott’s rapid and molecular diagnostics business.  “We know that rapid testing will be needed to address future variants, respond to surges, and keep workplaces, schools and healthcare facilities safe and operational—and we look forward to doing our part to help ensure critical domestic manufacturing capacity and supply.”

Over the past two years, Congress has appropriated $82.6 billion specifically for testing.  Senator Collins recently questioned an HHS official at a Health Committee hearing about how this funding was allocated.