Medtech Startup 'Test At Home' To Replace Nasal Swabs With Lollipop-like Device

Test At Home (TAH), backed by global VC firm Antler, is a medical technology startup that has completed clinical trial on its proprietary 'Lollipop-like' device that enables individuals to self-collect saliva sample for COVID-19 testing with around 95 per cent accuracy based on initial clinical data.

As the ongoing and impending third wave of COVID-19 led by the delta variant continues to strain public health systems globally, there is a dire need for a simple, accessible, convenient and frequent testing solution to identify and isolate affected patients. While Deep Nasopharyngeal (NP) swabs have been gold standard for SARS-CoV-2 detection, their increased demand has not only caused supply chain collapse, the wide-spread use is putting healthcare workers’ safety at risk during the nasal sample collection process. NP swabbing is painful and inconvenient, even when self-administered with home-based testing solutions. Additionally, NP swabbing is tough and infeasible for young children and other specific patient groups.

There has been repeated emphasis from public health communities on cheap, scalable and low-resource testing strategies that are repeatable, less-painful, convenient and can be self-administered with the accuracy of an NP swab. Saliva testing is emerging as a suitable alternative for NP swab testing as it's less painful, convenient, and can be self-collected with fewer risks to healthcare workers. However, solutions based on saliva collection have notably been less sensitive and less accurate compared to NP swab for both RT-PCR and Rapid Antigen testing, primarily due to non-standard, inconsistent protocol for sample collection. Not only the high viscosity mucous content makes processing saliva samples difficult, ‘spitting’ as a collection method has a strong risk of creating aerosol transmission.

Test At Home (TAH) has developed a proprietary 'Lollipop-like' swab that enables users to stimulate safe saliva production and collection through chewing. The 'Lollipop-like' swab can be easily and safely used by any age group to self-collect oral fluids samples. The device not only helps stimulate consistent and less viscous oral fluids, the experience is thoughtfully designed to produce very minimal to no aerosols during the collection process.

Test At Home (TAH), a Singapore-India based startup founded in 2020 by a trio of Biomedical Scientists and Engineers - Dr Vivek Manoharan (BEng, MS, PhD), medical industry business veteran Kanupriya Batra (BEng, MBA) and Singapore-based clinician Dr Terence Tan (MBBS,GDFM, GDOM). TAH aims to simplify medical diagnostics for easy and convenient home-based testing with its proprietary, scientific and innovative technologies.

TAH conducted a clinical trial on 150 subjects (50 COVID positive and 100 COVID negative) of its 'Lollipop-like' swab in India with research collaboration from Datar Cancer Genetics (UK-Germany-India) and National University of Singapore. The results were highly promising with the self-collected 'Lollipop-like' swab showing a 95 per cent accuracy compared to nasal swabs. In addition, 'Lollipop-like' swabs identified 8 more positive cases than nasal swabs. Based on the clinical trial data, TAH science-medical collaborators noted that the 'Lollipop-like' swab technology will be a game-changer for COVID-19 sample collection and testing, as it makes the accuracy of self-collected saliva testing equivalent to that of nasal swab testing method without the risk to health workers and the inconvenience of deep nasal invasion. The collected samples were noted to be consistent unlike spit saliva samples and noted to work with common storage and transportation mediums (VTMs), requiring the same process and set-up as nasal swabs with no additional step. The chewing and other materials used in the lollipop head are FDA approved medical grade, and can withstand chewing along with other contact with the human body with no adverse health risk. TAH is also currently expanding the use of this technology beyond COVID-19 to upper respiratory tract infections and other diseases including TB, STI, Food sensitivity, dental health etc. TAH is now undergoing regulatory clearance and final quality control procedures for the swab deployment in India, EU, Singapore, UK, US, Australia and others for COVID-19 testing.

Björn Lindfors, Partner at Antler, added, “As the COVID-19 ‘Pan-endemic’ continues to rage across the world, the need for accurate and convenient self-testing protocols is crucial. Test At Home team is poised to plug this crucial testing infrastructure gap with its novel and scientifically-backed ‘lollipop-like’ swab. This could be a game-changer in terms of obtaining safe, consistent and convenient samples for testing without risking the lives of precious healthcare workers.”