Lufthansa becomes first globally leading airline with a solution for safe and convenient international air travel during this pandemic
Landmark exclusive cooperation offers testing for passengers departing from or arriving at Frankfurt airport starting immediately
Innovative concept supports a safe reopening of air travel and further steps towards a new normal for our societies and economies
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. and ROSTOCK, Germany and BERLIN, June 29, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- CENTOGENE (CNTG), a commercial-stage company focused on rare diseases that transforms real-world clinical and genetic data into actionable information for patients, physicians, and pharmaceutical companies, announced today that it has partnered exclusively with Lufthansa and with Fraport, the operator of Frankfurt Airport, to offer COVID-19 testing to passengers flying to and from Frankfurt Airport (FRA). Serving as a blueprint to opening international borders, this first walk-in testing solution in Germany will aid with regulations when entering countries. In many countries (e.g., China), passengers will not be allowed to enter without prior COVID-19 testing. The exclusive partnership for Frankfurt Airport with Lufthansa and Fraport starts immediately, and is expected to run until July 31, 2021.
Passengers flying to or from Frankfurt Airport with Lufthansa will be able to perform the test at a sampling center conveniently located near the main terminal. This can either be completed the day before traveling or with a fast track solution the same day before departure. All results are delivered to the passenger via a secure digital platform and connected to their ticket – providing secured clearance for passengers flying to countries with entrance restrictions. Additionally, passengers can opt into an ID confirmation service, assuring authorities that the passengers’ identities correspond with the test results.
Dr. Volkmar Weckesser, CENTOGENE Chief Information Officer, stated, “Over the past months, global air travel has been critically affected by the COVID-19 pandemic – preventing individuals from traveling home, attending business meetings, and going on trips that were planned months in advance. Through our partnership with Lufthansa and our medical partner Dr. Bauer Laboratoriums GmbH, we can ensure a quick, accurate, and secure end-to-end solution that safely reopens air travel and further supports a return to a new normal for our societies and economies.”
“By opening the test center, we are offering our guests a comfortable opportunity to test themselves for flights abroad or a stay in Germany to avoid quarantine,” said Dr. Björn Becker, Senior Director Product Management Ground & Digital Services at Lufthansa Group. “Even in these challenging times, we are using our innovative strength and strong partnerships with CENTOGENE and Frankfurt Airport to ensure that our customers have a safe and relaxing travel experience.”
Daniela Weiss, Fraport Vice President Duty Management Terminals, said: “We are happy to offer passengers this new service at Frankfurt Airport. This is another example of how Frankfurt Airport, together with its partners, is pioneering the development of innovative passenger services. This service ensures a safe and relaxed travel experience at Germany’s global gateway, even during these times.”
About CENTOGENE
CENTOGENE engages in diagnosis and research around rare diseases transforming real-world clinical and genetic data into actionable information for patients, physicians, and pharmaceutical companies. Our goal is to bring rationality to treatment decisions and to accelerate the development of new orphan drugs by using our extensive rare disease knowledge, including epidemiological and clinical data, as well as innovative biomarkers. CENTOGENE has developed a global proprietary rare disease platform based on our real-world data repository with approximately 3.0 billion weighted data points from over 530,000 patients representing over 120 different countries as of March 31, 2020.
The Company’s platform includes epidemiologic, phenotypic, and genetic data that reflects a global population, and also a biobank of these patients’ blood samples. CENTOGENE believes this represents the only platform that comprehensively analyzes multi-level data to improve the understanding of rare hereditary diseases, which can aid in the identification of patients and improve our pharmaceutical partners’ ability to bring orphan drugs to the market. As of March 31, 2020, the Company collaborated with 39 pharmaceutical partners covering over 45 different rare diseases.
Important Notice and Disclaimer
This press release contains statements that constitute “forward looking statements” as that term is defined in the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements that express the Company’s opinions, expectations, beliefs, plans, objectives, assumptions or projections regarding future events or future results, in contrast with statements that reflect historical facts. Examples include discussion of our strategies, financing plans, growth opportunities and market growth. In some cases, you can identify such forward-looking statements by terminology such as “anticipate,” “intend,” “believe,” “estimate,” “plan,” “seek,” “project” or “expect,” “may,” “will,” “would,” “could” or “should,” the negative of these terms or similar expressions. Forward looking statements are based on management’s current beliefs and assumptions and on information currently available to the Company. However, these forward-looking statements are not a guarantee of our performance, and you should not place undue reliance on such statements. Forward-looking statements are subject to many risks, uncertainties and other variable circumstances, such as negative worldwide economic conditions and ongoing instability and volatility in the worldwide financial markets, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on our business and results of operations, possible changes in current and proposed legislation, regulations and governmental policies, pressures from increasing competition and consolidation in our industry, the expense and uncertainty of regulatory approval, including from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, our reliance on third parties and collaboration partners, including our ability to manage growth and enter into new client relationships, our dependency on the rare disease industry, our ability to manage international expansion, our reliance on key personnel, our reliance on intellectual property protection, fluctuations of our operating results due to the effect of exchange rates or other factors. Such risks and uncertainties may cause the statements to be inaccurate and readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such statements. Many of these risks are outside of the Company’s control and could cause its actual results to differ materially from those it thought would occur. The forward-looking statements included in this press release are made only as of the date hereof. The Company does not undertake, and specifically declines, any obligation to update any such statements or to publicly announce the results of any revisions to any such statements to reflect future events or developments, except as required by law.
For further information, please refer to the Risk Factors section in our Annual Report for the year ended December 31, 2019 on Form 20-F filed with the SEC on April 23, 2020 and other current reports and documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). You may get these documents by visiting EDGAR on the SEC website at www.sec.gov.
Media Contact:
CENTOGENE Ben Legg Corporate Communications press@centogene.com
MC Services AG Anne Hennecke / Susanne Kutter +49 211 529252 22 / +49 211 529252 27 centogene@mc-services.eu
