Applied DNA and Northwell Health, New York State’s largest healthcare provider, have entered into a pro bono material transfer agreement to establish a real-time surveillance programme to track and identify SARS-CoV-2 mutations and variants of concern (VoCs). The programme currently has over 2,000 samples underway, with early results from about 360 showing 80% of the specimens containing one or more mutations.

Premier Medical Corporation is planning to apply for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) with US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its Covid-19 rapid antigen test. The company is submitting the Sure Status Covid-19 Antigen Card Test for distribution and use of the test in the US. This comes after the test was included by the World Health Organization (WHO) in its emergency use list.

Astrotech subsidiary BreathTech Corporation has signed an investigator-initiated study agreement with the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, a non-profit academic medical centre. As per the terms of the agreement, BreathTest-1000 will be used to compare breaths of infected people against those tested negative. The test is expected to analyse different volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from breaths to determine the correlation with different disease states.