The 10m Covid-19 testing kits purchased from Andrew Forrest’s Minderoo Foundation have a shelf life of six months, prompting concerns the government’s massive acquisition may cause wastage. Australia has so far received 4.8m of the 10m Covid-19 tests that Minderoo, the philanthropic arm of the mining billionaire and philanthropist, secured for $200m from Chinese firm Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI) on behalf of the government. The volume already in Australia’s possession is huge. Current stocks of the BGI tests – one brand among dozens supplied to Australia – are more than double the total 2.2m tests conducted nationwide since the pandemic began more than six months ago. Uptake has been limited among public pathology providers, and the government has decided to send some BGI tests to the national medical stockpile to sit in reserve. The Guardian has learned that the BGI tests only have a shelf life of six months, a fact confirmed by the health department this week. Short shelf life is a common problem in healthcare supply chains and is far from unique to the BGI tests. But it has raised a particular concern due to the huge volume of BGI tests purchased, the relatively slow uptake, and the government’s decision to stockpile the kits. Pathology Technology Australia, the peak body for diagnostics manufacturers, said shelf life was a “perennial problem for suppliers and laboratories” and a “fact of life” in managing healthcare supply chains more broadly. But its chief executive, Dean Whiting, said it was something that ought to have been planned for when the BGI deal was struck. Whiting said that, on the numbers released by the health department, it was hard to see how there would not be wastage. “If the government and BGI and Minderoo didn’t cover this adequately, then shame on them, because this is not an unknown,” he told the Guardian. The government had asked Forrest and his philanthropic arm, Minderoo Foundation, to help secure it tests at a critical time in the pandemic, and has pledged to refund the $200m cost. Minderoo says it is making no profit from the deal. Since the purchase was announced in late April, questions have been raised about transparency, a lack of consultation with Australian industry leaders, and the utility of the BGI kits. A detailed audit previously showed Australia already had “more than enough” testing technology to cope with the pandemic, and PTA said the purchase of BGI tests introduced an entirely new testing technology to Australia in the middle of a pandemic, without any sense of how it would fit into the nation’s existing laboratory network. Minderoo also procured a nucleic acid extraction kit from one of BGI’s subsidiaries. That extraction kit – used in the process of Covid-19 testing – has a longer shelf life of 12 months. The extraction kits were in shorter supply in Australia and the BGI deal has helped in that regard, Whiting said. “I think the BGI stuff has helped, especially around the extraction, because we were struggling around extraction,” he said. “It’s just that the planning has been lacking a bit.” A health department spokeswoman confirmed the BGI PCR testing kits had a shelf life of six months. She said they were being used in 11 private laboratories across all states and were helping Australia respond to the pandemic, particularly in the recent testing surge in Victoria. “The BGI Covid-19 testing capability is supporting our strong public health response and bolstering Australia’s future capacity to test for Covid-19,” she said. “The BGI Covid-19 testing capability has been critical for supporting the significant increase in testing in Victoria.” A spokesman for Minderoo said the foundation was simply responding to a request by the federal government to help procure emergency Covid-19 testing, something it was pleased to have been able to do. “Our only priority has been to do what the government asked us to do: deliver Covid-19 PCR testing equipment and tests that substantially increased Australia’s testing capacity during this pandemic,” the spokesman said.