An XPrize contest to develop fast, frequent, cheap and easy-to-use COVID diagnostic tests has yielded five winners who will share the $6 million prize.
Chosen by an independent panel of judges, the prize-winning solutions are “radically affordable compared to what is currently available on the market; and are comparable to commercial offerings at measuring sensitivity, specificity and limit of detection, with a maximum turnaround time of 12 hours from sample to result,” XPrize said in a news release announcing the winners.
“We are thrilled to announce the winners of the Xprize Rapid COVID Testing, which awarded multiple winners with unique testing solutions to help prevent future supply chain problems,” added XPrize CEO Anousheh Ansari. “We started this journey to ensure communities across the globe have access to fast, affordable, and easy-to-use COVID-19 tests. We are grateful to have the best entrepreneurial and scientific teams on board to help bring their solutions to scale so we can properly reopen schools, businesses, and other vital institutions around the world.”
The winners were chosen from among 700 submissions from 38 countries. Twenty companies were named as finalists in December. The contest’s goal is to increase COVID-19 testing capabilities 100-times past the current U.S. standard.
Competition sponsors from the Covid Apollo Fund include five venture capital firms including Bain Capital, and anchor partner, Anthem Foundation and Anthem Inc., along with six additional health plans.
Here are four of the five winners, who will use their prize money to commercialize and distribute their tests. One other winner, Alveo Technologies of Alameda, Calif., did not publish information about its submission.
