Replies to post #230825 on Biotech Values

[miljenko]

Anyone knows who will do testing for NIH study,
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-begins-study-quantify-undetected-cases-coronavirus-infection

https://www.neoteryx.com/
will provide home blood sample collection kit.

[urche]

Re: Sensitivity/specificity of COVID-19 -antibody tests

My own attempts at research over past few days and that Biocentury A\article makes it clear to me that the rush to create antibody tests is a wild, crowded field with info that is challenging to process in real time.
Indeed, the article published on April 10 may already be outdated. It states that Cellex is the only company to receive EUA for Covid-19 antibody test. But, it seems that Hardy is distributing a test produced by AutoBio. The AutiBio test seems to have better sensitivity (95.7-99% for IgG and IgM, respectively). I think specificity is likely to be the more important criteria to focus on, because a test that cross reacts with coronaviruses other than COVID-19 would give dangerous results, suggesting false immunity. The reported specificity for the Autobio test is 99%.

By they way, the Cellex test is already in use at a tiny hospital in VT: https://tinyurl.com/re43gq4
Reviewing the company specs on the test, the reported sensitivity and specificity are somewhat lower than the source cited by DEW (95% sensitive and 91% specific). That seems not good enough to me for widespread utility.

In summary, for me it is very reassuring to find so much happening to develop antibody tests, but I am not yet finding any investable prospects. Becton Dickinson looks worth watching.

[DewDiligence]

FDA approves Rutgers’ COVID-19 saliva test that people can perform themselves at home:

https://www.biospace.com/article/rutgers-s-saliva-test-for-covid-19-approved-by-fda/?TrackID=16

“It means we no longer have to put health care professionals at risk for infection by performing nasopharyngeal or oropharyngeal collections… We can significantly increase the number of people tested each and every day as self-collection of saliva is quicker and more scalable than swab collections.”

If this can be scaled up quickly, it could enable a significant increase in testing throughput without sacrificing accuracy.