Bio Nebraska member, MatMaCorp, has been awarded a contract with NIH to increase COVID-19 testing for underserved communities.
Press Release from The National Institutes of Health:
The National Institutes of Health today announced $129.3 million in scale-up and manufacturing support for a new set of COVID-19 testing technologies as part of its Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics (RADx) initiative. NIH is awarding contracts to nine companies (including Bio Nebraska member, MatMaCorp) for technologies that include portable point-of-care tests for immediate results and high-throughput laboratories that can return results within 24 hours. These tests add to initial awards made to seven companies on July 31, 2020.
“Diagnostic testing is a critical component of the nation’s strategy to meet the challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic,” said NIH Director Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D. “Just started at the end of April, the RADx initiative has moved swiftly to speed innovation and later-stage development in the biomedical technology sector. The results thus far have been outstanding.”
In addition to NIH support, aspects of some of the testing technologies have been supported by the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), also in the Department of Health and Human Services, and by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), in the Department of Defense.
“One of the many facets of our testing strategy is to support and enable innovation,” said Adm. Brett P. Giroir, Assistant Secretary for Health. “The new technologies being funded today have the potential to transform the diagnostics landscape if their promise is proven in clinical studies. This all-of-government approach to testing innovation including DARPA, BARDA, NIH, HHS, and the private sector will yield benefits not only for the current pandemic, but for diverse acute and chronic diseases Americans fight every day.”