The US government has awarded a contract worth $US231.8 million ($A303.4 million) to Brisbane technology company Ellume to expand the production of its home COVID-19 tests.
The funding will help Ellume to ramp up their production capacity by 640,000 tests per day by December 2021, the US Department of Defence said on Monday.
The self-performed tests can be sold over the counter in the US and they give results within 15 minutes.
Ellume’s tests won US FDA emergency approval in December and the US government will procure 8.5 million of them.
The tests show roughly 95 per cent accuracy, White House COVID-19 senior advisor Andy Slavitt said during a press conference on Monday.
The test is not currently used in Australia.