LOS ANGELES– XPRIZE, the world’s leader in designing and operating incentive competitions to solve humanity’s grand challenges, today announced the 20 finalist teams advancing in the $6 million XPRIZE Rapid Covid Testing prize, a competition to create newer, higher standards of COVID-19 testing to help society safely return to everyday activities. Finalist teams were selected out of a pool of 219 semifinalists following judging of a detailed questionnaire pertaining to each team’s qualifications and blind proficiency testing.
Until vaccines are able to be distributed to the majority of the global population, improved testing capabilities is a vital pandemic mitigation strategy. Nine months into a global pandemic, society’s most vulnerable citizens and populations are still disproportionately affected by COVID-19, with tests being inaccessible, too expensive or too slow.
The XPRIZE Rapid Covid Testing finalist teams will now have two weeks to send their testing kits and protocols to laboratories for clinical validation. In collaboration with OpenCovidScreen, a non-profit founded by scientists and business leaders to drive needed innovation through “Open Science,” the XPRIZE Rapid Covid Testing competition will conclude in February 2021 with the top five teams advancing to the deployment phase where they will have been matched to deployment sites to prepare and administer tests. Each team that successfully completes the deployment phase will be rewarded an additional $500,000, for a total of $2.5 million awarded at this phase.
The 20 finalist teams are:
- 19-Xolution
- Alveo Technologies, Inc.
- Biomeme
- Boston Biopharma & Access Bio
- ChromaCode
- Clip COVID (by Luminostics)
- CovidNudge
- GeneSurge
- Genome ResearchLimited
- Highfield Diagnostics
- LJI
- Mirimus
- Molecular Mirror
- Molecular Systems Lab
- Nanomix
- PROMPT
- Reliable-LFC, LLC
- Stanford Microfluidics Lab and Purigen Biosystems
- UCSF COV2home
- ViralAlert
“We look forward to testing these innovative solutions from our finalists in the field and seeing firsthand the positive impact they will have on humanity so we all can more safely return to everyday activities,” said Anousheh Ansari, CEO of XPRIZE. “We are encouraged by rapid tests hitting the market already and know demand will continue for technology that utilizes alternative resources – which will allow for more frequent and faster results for everyone.”
