DxTerity Diagnostics, a genomics company near Los Angeles, said on March 27, 2020, that it is building a service to help employers make workplaces safer during the COVID-19 pandemic. Called KEEP AMERICA WORKING, it will be sold by subscription. It targets companies that want to cut the risk of the virus spreading while they keep operating. As people head back to work in the coming months, the company sees a large need that nobody is meeting yet.
The service relies on DxDirect, the company’s high-throughput genomics platform. It is designed to return de-identified COVID-19 results for an entire company by the next day.
Here is how it works. Subscribers get a shipment of nasal swabs every week or every two weeks, each with its own barcode. Employees collect their own nasal samples. A site coordinator then logs the de-identified sample IDs in a private company portal. After that, the devices go to DxTerity for testing, and results arrive electronically the following day.
DxTerity is also adding to its DxCollect line of sample collection devices. The new item is a nasal swab that inactivates the virus, so samples can be shipped safely without risk of infection.
Founder and CEO Bob Terbrueggen, Ph.D., said the pandemic has pushed many U.S. companies to look for ways to save lives and keep the country working. He noted that DxTerity has spent a lot of time on high-throughput testing, both for government emergency response through BARDA and for major biopharma firms and healthcare providers. That work includes genomic monitoring of autoimmune patients at home. According to Terbrueggen, the patented DxDirect and DxCollect technologies give the company unusual scale and sample access. As a result, he said, the screening service can grow quickly to cover hundreds of thousands of workers each week.
DxTerity holds ISO 13485 certification and runs a CLIA-licensed, CAP-accredited lab. It develops simple, fast and affordable genomic tests that diagnose and monitor disease.
