During this difficult and unprecedented time, at Twist we remain wholeheartedly dedicated to continuing to serve as your reliable and trusted partner, to allow you to focus on the important work you do to change the world.
You may have heard that on March 16th, seven counties in the Bay Area (San Francisco, San Mateo, Alameda, Contra Costa, Santa Clara, Marin and Santa Cruz) ordered all residents to “shelter in place” and all non-essential businesses to close as of 12:01 a.m. PDT, Tuesday, March 17, 2020 for a period of three weeks.
We wanted to provide some clarification as to what this means for Twist Bioscience. We are actively working with our government affairs and legal counsels to navigate the emerging situation. Together, we understand that because we provide products specifically for SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 testing and sequencing as well as development of diagnostic tests, vaccines and therapeutics, we fall within the health and safety exemption for healthcare operations and businesses providing products to healthcare companies. This means that all employees that are currently working at 681 Gateway, which is located in San Mateo County, may continue to come to work as scheduled.
Already, we have shifted to a work-from-home model, closing our physical workspaces with the exception of 681 Gateway where our employees required for manufacturing products for our customers as well as R&D related to COVID-19 continue to work diligently. In addition, we are now employing temperature screening, full gowning, and personal item cleaning procedures for all employees working at Gateway to minimize the health risks to our employees.
We do not anticipate any change in our production capabilities, research capabilities, or overall productivity as a company. We will continue to produce and ship our products as usual, so you can remain focused on achieving your research goals. In fact, we’re supporting the coronavirus fight with new research tools to help uncover answers about this devastating pandemic. Last week, we announced the availability of our Twist Synthetic SARS-CoV-2 RNA controls; safe and robust positive controls that replace the need for live virus in RT-PCR and NGS testing protocols. And today, we announced our new Twist SARS-CoV-2 Research panels: NGS Target Enrichment panels useful for environmental monitoring and surveillance testing, while also helping to provide insight into full sequence information to track viral evolution and strain origin. Visit our coronavirus research tools page to learn more about these important research tools.
If you know of any other opportunities for us to leverage our products or services to help others, please let us know.
We’ll continue to provide updates as the situation evolves. Until then, thank you for your continued trust in us. Please stay safe and healthy.
Science doesn’t stop. Neither do we.
Emily Leproust,
CEO and co-founder
Twist Bioscience
