2 Carlsbad Companies Win $6M Coronavirus Testing Contest

Carlsbad CA

17 March, 2021

5:11 PM

Description

CARLSBAD, CA — Four California tech companies were among the top five winning teams in the XPRIZE $6 million Rapid COVID Testing competition Tuesday. Two of the winners are companies based in Carlsbad. XPRIZE, a prominent technology contest organizer based in Los Angeles, launched a worldwide challenge last July to find innovators who could develop a fast, affordable and easy coronavirus test to meet a demand for testing as the virus circled the globe over the last year. Carlsbad firms ChromaCode and Reliable-LFC were among the five winners in the U.S., along with the La Jolla Institute for Immunology, Alveo Technologies in Alameda and Mirimus in Brooklyn. "California innovation and ingenuity strikes again," Gov. Gavin Newsom said, tweeting about the contest Wednesday morning. Each team had to develop tests that had a maximum turnaround time of 12 hours to deliver results, according to XPRIZE. The two Carlsbad tech companies were awarded for their coronavirus tests. The two firms will each get $500,000 upfront and both could receive another $500,000 each over the next few months if they are able to successfully mass-produce their tests. Reliable-LFC launched just last year, tossing its hat in ring to fill a desperate void for more coronavirus testing in California. The company's V-CHEK wireless diagnostic test can give results in 10 minutes, according to the company. ChromaCode says their high-definition PCR test, which uses cloud-based analytics, is faster and cheaper than the average test on the market. The company said a portion of its winnings will be used to develop tools that detect coronavirus variants. The contest drew over 700 competing teams, which was narrowed down to 219 semifinalists. In December, XPRIZE announced 20 finalists that had to send testing kits to laboratories for clinical validation. A panel of judges — made up of healthcare workers and experts — reviewed each testing platform. Beyond the contest, a $50 million COVID Apollo Project lead by a coalition of science investors will conjoin with OpenCovidScreen and XPRIZE to help accelerate "the best ideas, technologies and innovations to market and scale them," according to XPRIZE. "While vaccines are important, we cannot rely on them alone to prevent the spread of the coronavirus and future outbreaks, especially not until they are provided around the world, en masse and at-scale," said Jeff Huber, president and co-founder of OpenCovidScreen, in a statement. The winning teams of the contest were: Reliable LFC, LLC, Antigen Testing, CarlsbadChromaCode, RNA Testing, CarlsbadMirimus, RNA Testing, BrooklynLa Jolla Institute for Immunology, RNA Testing, La JollaAlveo Technologies, RNA Testing, Alameda