Premier Daniel Andrews has announced a deal that will see a Victorian manufacturer produce rapid antigen tests (RAT) for the local market.
Test manufacturer Lumos Diagnostics, which is already making RATs for Canadian and European markets, will produce 50 million RATs a year.
The Lumos test kits are yet to be approved by the Therapeutic Goods Administration, but the manufacturer expected to produce one million per month from April, and three million a month from July.
The government would receive a priority supply in coming months of several million tests.
"Being able to scale up production so quickly shows the strength of Victoria's advanced manufacturing capabilities," Mr Andrews said.
The government would not reveal how much the deal is worth, but said the money would come from the $268.5 million in funding allocated to accelerate coronavirus treatment research.
Hospitalisations at 768 as Victoria reports 25 deaths
Victoria has recorded 25 more COVID-19 deaths, as the number of people in hospital after contracting the virus has fallen to 768, down from 851 yesterday.
Of those patients, 99 are in intensive care units, including 31 on ventilators.
There were 14,553 new cases reported yesterday.
Of the new cases, 6,932 were detected by rapid antigen tests (RATs) and 7,621 by PCR test results.
It brings the total number of official active cases to 73,886, up from the 72,710 reported a day earlier.
There were 17,644 doses of vaccine administered at state sites yesterday.
More than 93 per cent of people aged 12+ have received two doses of vaccine, while 40 per cent of people aged 18 and over have received three doses.
The health department has released details of the vaccination status of COVID-19 patients in the state's hospitals.
The department said 91.6 per cent of people currently in hospital were not vaccinated with a third dose, while 93.9 per cent of ICU patients had not received their third dose.
Since the start of the Delta outbreak, 49.2 per cent of deaths were in unvaccinated people, and 8.2 per cent had received one dose.
Just 2.4 per cent of deaths were people who had received three doses of vaccine.
Meanwhile, Mr Andrews said the government had been consulting with people in the health sector about resuming elective surgeries delayed by the pandemic, but no date had been confirmed.
"This is a difficult decision, a terribly difficult decision but it is the right decision and we will get these surgeries back up and running as soon as possible," he said.
Mr Andrews would not confirm media reports that elective surgeries could resume as early as next week.
