On Apr. 16, 2020, Mammoth Biosciences announced the publication of a study demonstrating the power of its platform to detect SARS-CoV-2 from respiratory swab RNA extracts in under 45 minutes.

The company’s CRISPR-based diagnostic assay, DETECTR™, can deliver results in under 45 minutes as visualized on a lateral flow strip, similar to an at-home pregnancy test. DETECTR does not require a complex laboratory setting; it can be performed with portable heat blocks and readily available, “off-the-shelf” reagents and disposable lateral flow strips.

The assay offers similar levels of sensitivity and specificity to qRT-PCR tests, with 95 percent positive predictive agreement and 100 percent negative predictive agreement. The study, published in Nature Biotechnology, contained the first peer-reviewed data using CRISPR diagnostics for COVID-19, with the largest set of patient samples to-date.