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| Ebolavirus under an electron microscope--Courtesy of CDC |
Amid efforts to counter the deadly Ebola outbreak, researchers and companies are homing in on rapid mobile tests as a more effective way to identify people with the disease and prevent its spread.
As Bloomberg reports, scientists working in West Africa are relying on overworked labs to process samples, often delaying results by up to two days and sending sick patients back into healthy communities. The lack of efficient testing has prompted diagnostic companies to develop tools that could better contain the disease and provide more accurate results, Andrew Hoskins, country director for aid group MTI Liberia, told the news outlet.
Colorado-based Corgenix ($CONX) is one such company, rolling out a diagnostic tool that works similar to a home pregnancy test and can deliver results within minutes. An individual provides a finger prick of blood, and results appear on a testing strip: One line means negative, two lines means the person tests positive for Ebola. The company won nearly $3 million in funding from the U.S. National Institutes of Health in June to continue work on its rapid Ebola diagnostic tool.
Corgenix CEO Doug Simpson told Bloomberg that the company plans to seek emergency authorization for its test soon, possibly by the end of November. "Everybody agrees that a quick test, there's a certain advantage to it," he said (as quoted by Bloomberg). "We've been on the fast track; we've tried to really accelerate our program."
Corgenix is not the only company getting in on the effort. Last week, the FDA granted BioFire Diagnostics, a subsidiary of French diagnostics outfit bioMérieux, emergency authorization for its rapid Ebola test. The company's diagnostic delivers results in one hour, rather than the one to two days required by existing methods, and runs off of the company's BioFire FilmArray system, which is already used by more than 300 hospitals.
Diagnostic outfits across the pond are also hard at work developing quick, easy-to-use Ebola tests. Earlier this month, British startup PrimerDesign completed work on its Ebola test kit. The company's product uses an RNA sample to identify tiny amounts of the virus in its early stages and provides a complete analysis within 90 minutes, it said in an earlier statement. France's Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) recently teamed up with European pharma company Vedalab to develop a user-friendly testing system that could diagnose Ebola in less than 15 minutes. The kit includes a hand-held device that reads small samples of bodily fluids, and shows results in stripes through a window.
- read the Bloomberg story