New POC Device Improves Speed and Accuracy of Lateral Flow Immunoassays to Detect COVID-19 IgM/IgG Antibodies

By LabMedica International staff writers
Posted on 15 Jun 2020

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A new point-of-care device improves the speed and accuracy of lateral flow immunoassays (LFIA) to detect COVID-19 IgM and IgG antibodies from a single drop of blood.

The COVID-19 LFIA reader has been developed by ThermoGenesis Holdings, Inc. (Rancho Cordova, CA, USA) which has filed patent applications for the device.

"Today's LFIAs, in certain cases, are challenging for untrained users to properly read when results are indicated by weakly stained bands," stated Phil Coelho, Chief Technology Officer of ThermoGenesis. "Variances among patients, if not read properly, could generate either false-negatives or false-positives. Additionally, in the large-scale screening environment, such as employer-sponsored screens of employees, record keeping by hand slows test administration and introduces the potential for recordkeeping errors."

Mr. Coelho continued, "ThermoGenesis' COVID-19 LFIA reader will enable the user to simply slide the test cartridge into a portable reader, providing an instant readout which can be immediately recorded into a corporate database, and/or a cloud-based web portal. This data will yield epidemiologically valuable insight into the evolution of the geographic distribution and spread of COVID-19 seropositivity in real time."

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