SensNews March 2020

Sensor100 Page 5 Company Responses Abbott announced on March 27 that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for the fastest available molecular point- of-care test for the detection of novel coronavirus (COVID-19), de- livering positive results in as little as five minutes and negative results in 13 minutes.The test will run on the company’s ID NOW™ platform, pro- viding rapid results in a wide range of healthcare settings such as physicians’ offices, urgent care clinics and hospital emergency departments. “The COVID-19 pandemic will be fought on multiple fronts, and a portable molecular test that offers results in minutes adds to the broad range of diagnostic solutions needed to combat this virus,” said Robert B. Ford, president and chief operating officer,Abbott.“With rapid testing on ID NOW, healthcare providers can perform molecular point-of-care testing outside the traditional four walls of a hospital in outbreak hotspots.” Abbott Press Release 27 March FDA Fleshes Out Emergency Guidance for CoronavirusTest Developers The US Food and Drug Administration has been updating its guidance for COVID-19 diagnostic tests in a piecemeal fashion as the outbreak expands. Read the full story: GenomeWeb 26 March A microbiologist performs a manual extraction of the coronavirus Courtesy of Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf/Wikimedia Commons