A $5M prize spurs race for best rapid test

Competition hopes to speed up development of procedure to quickly discover if you have virus.

As countries race to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, just determining who’s infected remains a major challenge.

Large-scale testing is a crucial element in containing the virus, experts say, because many who contract it exhibit little to no symptoms. Without widespread testing, it’s a daunting task to identify contagious individuals and isolate them.

To help meet that challenge, the XPRIZE Foundation, which aims to spur technological and industry advancements, is offering a $5 million prize to develop a new COVID-19 rapid test.

Competitors can enter until midnight Tuesday. Since July, 659 teams from 68 countries have registered.

Currently, test results for the novel coronavirus can take up to two weeks, creating headaches for medical professionals, public-health experts and elected officials.

Without the ability to test people often and with speedy results, many cases may go undetected, which can lead to new clusters of infections.

“We have, like everyone else around the globe, seen the impact this has had on mental health, physical health, bringing the wheels off of the economy,” said Anousheh Ansari, chief executive officer of the XPRIZE Foundation. “We always look at innovation to solve grand challenges.”

Ansari and her family poured millions into funding the first XPRIZE in 2004 that launched the commercial space race. That $10 million prize brought in about $100 million of investment to the teams that competed, helping fuel what is now a more than $100 billion industry.

Ansari’s hope is that the COVID19 prize will seed a similar investment boom to fight a virus that has infected more than 27.3 million people and killed more than 892,000 worldwide.

The competition for a rapid COVID-19 test has few requirements except accuracy and speed. The test must return results within minutes or hours, not days.

And it must be affordable, costing no more than $12 each, according to Ansari.

Ease of administration is key as well, so people can test themselves, she said.

Last month, Abbott Laboratories announced the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had given emergency authorization for its rapid $5 COVID-19 test. The antigen test involves a nasal swab, and is based on the same technology as a flu test.