NEW YORK – Curative announced on Monday that it has spun off a point-of-care PCR testing company called Sensible Diagnostics.
The new company will commercialize a 10-minute point-of-care PCR testing platform called the Sensible Platform. Curative, meanwhile, is no longer in the diagnostic testing business and is currently offering a health insurance plan available to employers in Texas with zero out-of-pocket cost for members.
The Sensible PCR platform was originally designed to support Curative's next-generation testing operation, the firm said in a statement.
It was built based on more than two years of experience performing over 2 million molecular point-of-care tests in the field while part of Curative's initial diagnostic focus.
The system has a 10-minute time-to-result and is also affordable and accurate, the firm said.
Curative partnered with KorvaLabs in April 2020 to offer lab-based COVID-19 testing.
"We learned a lot about diagnostics testing from the pandemic, and in conjunction with our extensive knowledge in the field, we wanted to build a PCR testing platform that would deliver on speed and accuracy while keeping costs low," said Curative CEO and Cofounder Fred Turner.
Ernest Templin, CEO and cofounder of Sensible Diagnostics, said the platform has a pricing structure that is "competitive with lateral flow testing and delivers a PCR test result that is exactly the same as one you would get from a lab."
The platform will be launched with a respiratory test, but the firm said it was built to be extended to all types of infectious disease testing, such as sexually transmitted infections. Prior to founding Curative, Turner led a firm called Shield Bio that aimed to sequence patient gonorrhea samples using Oxford Nanopore technology.
The Sensible rapid PCR platform is not currently cleared by the US Food and Drug Administration, nor does it have Emergency Use Authorization, and it is not currently for sale.
In addition to support from federal grants, the company is currently preparing to launch a Series A funding round.