CDC awards $11.4M for bird-flu rapid tests
ATLANTA, Dec. 4 (UPI)—MesoScale of Gaithersburg, Md., and San Diego-based Nanogen are among the companies sharing in a U.S. award to develop bird-flu tests.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday it has awarded a total of $11.4 million in funding to four companies to develop tests that doctors and field epidemiologists can use to quickly diagnose the virus H5N1, the virus that causes avian flu, as well as other existing and emerging flu viruses.
The firms will use the money over the next year to develop tests that can differentiate bird flu from seasonal flu within 30 minutes and that can also adapt to mutating and emerging viruses with pandemic potential, CDC said. The agency said the goal is for the tests to be approved and on the market in two to three years.
The four companies and their contract awards are:
-- MesoScale, maker of Multi-Array Detection ($706,241).
-- Nanogen, maker of a novel point of care immunoassay system ($4.5 million).
-- Cepheid, based in Sunnyvale, Calif., maker of GeneXPert Flu assay ($2.4 million).
-- Iquum, based in Marlborough, Mass., maker of LIAT Lab-in-a-Tube ($3.8 million).
“We have seen avian influenza infections since 1997, but we unfortunately still do not have a good way to quickly and easily distinguish at a patient’s bedside whether they suffer from H5N1 or a more common type of influenza,” said CDC Director Julie Gerberding.
Current rapid flu tests can distinguish only if a patient is infected with seasonal flu bugs A or B.
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