NEW YORK – Point-of-care molecular diagnostics firm Sensible Diagnostics said Tuesday that it will receive up to $1 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health for the development, commercialization, and implementation of a multiplex test for COVID-19 and influenza A/B.
Los Angeles-based Sensible said it will receive the milestone-based funding within the next four months from the NIH's Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics (RADx) Tech program. The firm will use the money to accelerate its development of a PCR-based multiplex point-of-care respiratory panel for differentiating SARS-CoV-2 and influenza A/B infections.
The company is developing a test that can be performed in 10-15 minutes that it said will cost the same or less than current molecular tests and CLIA-waived antigen tests.
Sensible said it is also developing a separate test for group A Streptococcus, and it plans to develop additional tests for sexually transmitted infections including hepatitis C and HIV infections as well as a panel to screen newborns for infectious diseases.
Curative spun off Sensible Diagnostics as a standalone company in April. It said at the time the company was developing a 10-minute point-of-care PCR testing platform called the Sensible Platform. Sensible said the Curative engineers and scientists who developed the platform also performed more than 200,000 COVID-19 tests daily during the height of the pandemic, which gives Sensible Diagnostics unique insights about the accuracy, speed, and costs of testing required by healthcare providers.
"As the only point-of-care system that was designed by people who have actually run point-of-care tests in the field, these funds will be put to use to further our mission of developing and commercializing one of the world's most affordable, accessible, and accurate point-of-care PCR testing platforms," Sensible CEO Ernest Templin said in a statement.