Shares of Alva-based Omega Diagnostics Group, involved in developing new tests with partners for COVID-19, rose another 20% after it said on Monday morning “the self-test usability study for the UK Rapid Test Consortium’s COVID-19 lateral flow antibody test has concluded.”

Omega Diagnostics shares have soared 475% over the past 12 months.

Omega said the study was performed by Ulster University using 2,000 volunteers and completed over the weekend.

“The AbC-19 Rapid test has already been CE-Marked for professional use,” said Omega in a stock exchange statement.

“Omega remains on track to have production capacity in place this month to produce an initial 100,000 AbC-19 Rapid test per week, scaling up to 200,000 tests per week capacity in October.

“If demand through the UK-RTC was to go above 200,000 tests per week, either from the UK Government, or from other third parties, the company would allocate additional capacity to meet that demand as well.”

Omega CEO Colin King said: “We’re very pleased that the self-test usability study has completed and that we are progressing towards our goal of MHRA approval for self-test home use.

“We cannot give a timescale for when this might be achieved but we look forward to updating shareholders on further developments.”

However, Omega published another stock exchange statement on Monday afternoon saying it “notes the statement made by BBI Solutions Limited earlier today regarding an order from the UK Government and successful independent evaluations in relation to the AbC-19™ test developed by the UK-RTC.”

Omega added: “This was released by BBI in error and contained incorrect information.

“The statement has been withdrawn by BBI and should be disregarded.

“Any future updates on potential UK Government orders or the outcome of independent evaluations will be disclosed to shareholders once these are concluded.”