Circle HealthPod, the rapid Covid-19 test system from Prenetics will be reusable and available for use at home
Danny Yeung—a Tatler cover star, Gen.T 2019 honouree, Impact List honouree, and CEO of biotech company Prenetics, has teamed up with fellow Impact List honouree and Culture List honouree Adrian Cheng of New World Development (NWD) to launch Circle HealthPod—a rapid and reusable detection system for Covid-19 which is available for use at home.
The HealthPod will provide households with a fast, accurate, PCR-quality and reliable test option whenever needed through its single-use molecular capsules that work for all infectious diseases, starting with Covid-19 and due to include flu and STDs in the future. Developed at the University of Oxford, HealthPod will be the first rapid molecular point of care and at-home diagnostic test to be offered in Asia.
When it comes to detecting Covid-19, the test has a sensitivity of 96 per cent and a specificity of 99.9 per cent. It uses a pain-free short nasal swab and provides results to the user’s smartphone or directly in the HealthPod in 20 minutes. The pocket-sized lab can do more than 1,000 tests and is available for use both by symptomatic and asymptomatic individuals aged two and over.
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This launch comes as Yeung’s Prenetics is reportedly merging with Cheng’s Artisan Acquisition in a deal worth US$1.3 billion. “We are extremely excited to partner with Adrian and the entire NWD ecosystem. For the past year, we have been working with [the] University of Oxford on the HealthPod, it’s truly a consummation of so many parties coming together to bring new innovation to the World, Yeung said in a statement.
“The Circle HealthPod is the first of its kind and we believe it will change how consumers consume healthcare. We imagine a future where every household and every office will have a Circle HealthPod, capable of testing for all infectious diseases without ever having to step foot outside. Our mission at Prenetics has always been to decentralize healthcare and today's announcement with NWD marks a significant milestone, he added.
Prenetics is collaborating with Watsons for the launch of HealthPod in Hong Kong but Yeung is looking beyond, hoping to get approval from the US government by the end of the year for worldwide distribution.
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