CT firm gets $8.1M grant for at-home COVID test

A Guilford-based health technology company is getting $8.1 million from a National Institutes Institutes of Health grant to advance the development of a rapid at-home testing kit for COVID-19.

Detect Inc. was one of the companies from around the country to receive a share of the $77.7 million awarded through the Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics Initiative.

The funding will facilitate the development and the manufacturing of Detect’s rapid at-home COVID-19 test to meet national testing demand, according to the NIH.

Todd Merchak, program manager and coleader of the Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics Initiative for NIH, said the focus of the program is to make at-home testing as sensitive to detecting COVID-19 as tests measured in labs currently are.

“The at-home tests that we have in the marketplace right now are a little less sensitive than what is being done in labs,” Merchak said.

Detect is one of the companies founded by Jonathan Rothberg , who has started a series of health care companies in Connecticut.

“Our team of scientists have developed technology that brings the highest quality of laboratory testing into your home,” Rothberg said in a statement. “We are extremely grateful to have the support of the NIH RADx initiative to make the Detect Covid-19 Test scalable and affordable.”

Detect’s COVID-19 test is undergoing U.S. Food and Drug Administration review. It provides what the company says is labaccurate results, at home, in approximately one hour.

Merchak said the Detect testing, along with others that have been given NIH funding, can be shared using a mobile application, which is possible with current at-home test products on the marketplace.

Eric Kauderer-Abrams, chief technology officer of Detect, said the “partnership will allow us to deliver highly accurate Covid-19 testing to the U.S. market sooner — fulfilling the nation’s unprecedented demand for convenient and reliable at-home testing.”

The test is intended for all known variants of COVID-19.

H John Voorhees III / Hearst Connecticut Media Heidi Bettcher RN, a public health nurse, collects a self-administered COVID test swab during the New Milford Health Department's COVID-19 drive-thru testing site at John Pettibone Community Center in New Milford on Aug. 11. Detect Inc., a Guilford-based health technology company, is getting $8.1 million from a National Institutes Institutes of Health grant to advance the development of a rapid at-home testing kit for COVID-19.

Rothberg