On Mar. 31, 2020, Luminex announced it had received $642,450 in funding from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority. These funds will help support development, testing, and submission later this week for an Emergency Use Authorization for the ARIES SARS-CoV-2 Assay. This assay runs on the company’s sample-to-answer ARIES System, an U.S. Food and Drug Administration-cleared, automated molecular diagnostics platform for moderate complexity labs.

The ARIES^® SARS-CoV-2 Assay is designed to provide rapid answers in patients believed to have COVID-19, generating results in approximately two hours. It can be run on 6-unit and 12-unit ARIES^® Systems for labs seeking a medium-throughput solution with minimal hands-on time required.

The assay will improve upon existing laboratory-developed tests (LDTs) for SARS-CoV-2 on the ARIES^® System by eliminating the need to purchase and incorporate additional reagents, making the test easier to run and allowing labs to start testing immediately upon performance verification. Luminex intends to price the ARIES^® SARS-CoV-2 Assay below current government reimbursement levels in order to prevent additional financial burden on customers and the healthcare system during the COVID-19 pandemic.

BARDA is part of the US Department of Health and Human Services and is tasked with protecting the country against emerging infectious diseases and other threats. Through public-private partnerships, BARDA supports the development of vaccines, drugs, and diagnostics.

Luminex received a BARDA contract and an FDA EUA last week for its new NxTAG CoV Extended Panel, a high-throughput test for detecting SARS-CoV-2 that provides results for up to 96 samples in approximately four hours. The NxTAG CoV Extended Panel runs on Luminex’s easy-to-use, compact MAGPIX^® System.