The National Institutes of Health (NIH) recently launched the $1.5 billion Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics (RADx) initiative, to infuse funding into innovative technologies aimed at speeding innovation, development, and commercialization of reliable COVID-19 tests.
Those technologies need three things: accuracy, usability, and salability. NIH is seeking opportunities to move more advanced diagnostic technologies through the development pipeline to reach commercialization and broad availability, with an end goal of increasing rapid testing. Those involved will benefit from cooperation between the NIH, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority.
“We need all innovators, from the basement to the boardroom, to come together to advance diagnostic technologies, no matter where they are in development,” NIH Director Francis Collins said. “Now is the time for that unmatched American ingenuity to bring the best and most innovative technologies forward to make testing for COVID-19 widely available.”
With this initiative, NIH is calling those with a rapid testing technology to compete in a national testing challenge for a share of up to $500 million spread over all phases of development. This COVID-19 testing challenge will include a three-phase selection process, during which both at-home and point-of-care tests will have a place. Finalists will be paired with technical, business, and manufacturing experts to capitalize on their potential. Supposing the selected technologies are already well along in their development, they could be set on a separate track and advanced within the commercialization process.
NIH hopes these efforts will bear fruit by the end of summer 2020, with still more tests produced in time for the next flu season. The initiative will also expand the Point-of-Care Technologies Research Network, which will use a flexible, rapid process to inject funding and further technology designs — coupled with technology innovators and entrepreneurs — to support investigators from universities and businesses through five technology hubs: Emory University/Georgia Institute of Technology, Johns Hopkins University, Northwestern University, University of Massachusetts Medical School and the Consortia for Improving Medicine with Innovation & Technology (CIMIT) at Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts General Hospital
“Americans are innovators and makers,” Dr. Bruce J. Tromberg., director of NIH’s National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, said. “We need American tech experts, innovators, and entrepreneurs to step up to one of the toughest challenges we’ve faced as a country, to help get us safely back to public spaces.”