RE:RE:New 5 minutes test for COVID-19 by Abott LexaGene’s technology is best designed for syndromic testing, where people want to identify the cause of infection (and how to treat it if we include antimicrobial assays). In other words - applications where a high Plex is desirable.
The Abbott machine is used primarily for flu diagnoses. It is a machine that is designed to detect one specific target. COVID will become seasonal - and healthcare practitioners are going to want to detect both COVID and flu at the same time, but these tests don’t do that. They effectively need to double the cost (and time, to do both).
In regards to respiratory infections - a high Plex is desirable (as detecting RSV, and Adenovirus is also important - and there are many more respiratory pathogens that cause disease - and if you get a negative result, it is very frustrating, as you don’t know if the test wasn’t sensitive enough - or if the person is sick with a pathogen that wasn’t included in the test.
If you were a doctor, would you rather know the answer in 15 minutes with many false positives/ false negatives or wait 60 minutes and have the answer to what the issue is with the patient, i.e. Covid19, influenza, respiratory issues etc. Lex’s technology will test for up to 27 different pathogens which will really help the doctor diagnose the illness as well as provide antibiotic resistance