Ultra-Sensitive Respiratory Virus Antigen Testing
Burst Diagnostics is developing a paradigm-shifting rapid antigen test designed to eliminate the need to compromise between the accuracy of lab tests and the convenience of rapid antigen tests for the diagnosis of respiratory virus infections.
The gold standard for COVID-19 diagnosis is RT-PCR.
RT-PCR tests are sensitive but require a trip to the clinic.
Rapid antigen tests, built using lateral flow assay (LFA) technology, are extremely popular because they can be performed in point-of-care settings and even at home, providing results in less than 15 minutes.
However, rapid antigen tests tend to be much less sensitive than PCR-based tests. Thus, there is a ‘sensitivity gap’ between RT-PCR and rapid antigen-based solutions on the market. This sensitivity gap represents a growing number of patients that receive false negative results but would ultimately test positive by RT-PCR in the clinic.
More sensitive tests equal earlier diagnosis.
This is where Burst comes in.
Burst Diagnostics is developing the Burst ASAP platform to provide the most sensitive rapid antigen test on the market. Unlike lateral flow assays which have no washing or amplification steps, the ASAP tests empower a full, cartridge-based enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) driven by the simple addition of a liquid sample.
Burst Diagnostics is opening the door to lab-quality diagnostic testing… where it's needed
References:
Cohen, J. F., Bertille, N., Cohen, R. & Chalumeau, M. Rapid antigen detection test for group A streptococcus in children with pharyngitis. Cochrane Database Syst Rev 7, (2016).
Banerjee, S. Rapid tests for the diagnosis of group A streptococcal infection : a review of diagnostic test accuracy, clinical utility, safety, and cost-effectiveness. (2018).
Liu, Y., Zhan, L., Qin, Z., Sackrison, J. & Bischof, J. C. Ultrasensitive and Highly Specific Lateral Flow Assays for Point-of-Care Diagnosis. ACS Nano 15, 3593–3611 (2021).
Hendi, S. bin, Malik, Z. A., Khamis, A. H. & Al-Najjar, F. Y. A. High diagnostic accuracy of automated rapid Strep A test reduces antibiotic prescriptions for children in the United Arab Emirates. BMC Pediatr 21, (2021).Hendi, S. bin, Malik, Z. A., Khamis, A. H. & Al-Najjar, F. Y. A. High diagnostic accuracy of automated rapid Strep A test reduces antibiotic prescriptions for children in the United Arab Emirates. BMC Pediatr 21, (2021).