CREATING A FAST, EASY-TO-USE TEST
Beverly firm has the inside track
Testing for the coronavirus could be done in an hour without lab-trained technicians using a device the size of a Keurig coffee machine that a Boston-area biotech company is developing.
“Right now when someone gets sick they have to wait a long time to find out the results and this is causing a challenge for people to try to curb the spread of this disease,” said Dr. Jack Regan, CEO of LexaGene, based in Beverly.
“If you can speed up the time for results, the better chance of identifying sick people quickly before they have a chance to infect others,” said Regan.
LexaGene’s LX Analyzer works by amplifying the genetic material in a throat or nasal sample to identify it, rather than waiting for a culture which can take several days.
It can look for 27 different pathogens to find out why someone is feeling sick and identify any antibiotic resistance that the bacteria or virus may have, completely automatically.
It only takes about 15 minutes to get trained on how to use the analyzer, said Regan.
After a throat or nasal swab is collected from a patient and placed into a vial with culture liquid, it is swirled around, poured into a cartridge and placed in the device.
Results are emailed to a healthcare provider in a PDF format an hour later.
“You see these lines of people in their car waiting to get tested and they want to know ASAP what’s going on,” said Regan.
The company is currently pursuing emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration to speed up the approval process and help address a lack of test kits.
LexaGene has performed in-house testing on its device using the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s coronavirus test and is also developing its own tests for the pathogen that causes COVID-19.
Regan plans to start by building 25 devices that he hopes to sell beginning in August. The commercial system can test one sample at a time but there are plans to build a next generation instrument that can process more, Regan said.