Alveo Technologies’ be.well COVID-19 Test Wins XPRIZE Rapid Covid Testing Competition
Prestigious honor validates potential of Alveo’s low-cost, accessible COVID-19 testing technology as company prepares for commercialization
Alameda, Calif.– Alveo Technologies, Inc. (Alveo) announced today that it has been named a winner of the $6M XPRIZE Rapid COVID Testing Competition for its be.well COVID-19Test. The be.well™ platform provides individuals access to molecular testing and cloud-based analytics for rapid diagnosis and management of infectious diseases.
The $6 million XPRIZE Rapid Covid Testing Competition challenged any and all innovators across the world to develop frequent, fast, cheap and easy COVID-19 screening solutions to help meet the surging demand for tests and relieve the global supply chain.Twenty finalist teams, including Alveo, were selected out of a pool of219 semifinalists, with an initial 700 teams signing up. These semifinalists then had two weeks to send their testing kits and protocols to laboratories for clinical validation. Alveo won $500,000 as one of the top five teams that is advancing to the final deployment phase where its technology will be matched to deployment sites to prepare and administer tests. Each team that successfully completes the deployment phase will be awarded an additional $500,000.
“Alveo is honored to be named a winner of the XPRIZE Rapid Covid Testing Competition,” said Ron Chiarello, PhD, CEO, founder and Chairman of the Board of Alveo. “This recognition further validates the innovation of our science and technology team to create a low cost and easy to use infectious disease testing platform, which we hope will empower people to test at home and obtain treatment at the earliest possible time – saving countless lives and medical resources.”
Alveo is in the process of seeking Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for its be.well COVID-19 Test to allow its sale in the United States. The company recently received CE Mark approval for its be.well COVID-19 Test in the United Kingdom, the European Union and several Scandinavian countries and is in the process of scaling up production for commercialization. Alveo is also developing other infectious disease tests as part of the be.well platform to help decentralize diagnostics and for use in any setting providing greater impact and access to healthcare data.
“The market for rapid COVID-19 tests has thus far been defined by high costs, low accessibility, long times to treatment and inconsistent performance,” said Julianne Averill, Chief Financial Officer of Alveo. “This honor, coupled with our award of the CE Mark for European regulatory approval, demonstrates that the be.well COVID-19Test is poised to begin commercialization, and holds the potential to transform the COVID-19 rapid testing market.”
XPRIZE Rapid Covid Testing is held in collaboration with OpenCovidScreen, a non-profit founded by scientists and business leaders to drive needed innovation through “Open Science.”
“We’re excited to collaborate with XPRIZE and a committed group of partners who want to make a difference by innovating and building the Covid testing capability we need to safely return to work and school,” said Jeff Huber, president &co-founder of OpenCovidScreen. “We need solutions that are frequent, fast turnaround, cheap, and easy, and that are supply chain diverse. There is near infinite need and demand at the right price. We need screening testing capabilities 100-times greater than our current status to return our economy and society to normal function.”
Launched in July 2020, XPRIZE Rapid Covid Testing is a $6 million competition that aims to create newer, higher standards of COVID-19 testing, a vital pandemic mitigation strategy.
About XPRIZE
XPRIZE is a global future-positive movement of over 1M people and rising, delivering truly radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity. XPRIZE inspires and empowers a global community of problem-solvers to positively impact our world by crowdsourcing solutions through large-scale competitions, tackling the world’s grandest challenges in exploration, environment and human equity. Active competitions include the $20 Million NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE, $10 Million XPRIZE Rainforest, $15 Million XPRIZE Feed the Next Billion, $10 Million ANA Avatar XPRIZE, $6 Million XPRIZE Rapid Covid Testing, $5 Million IBM Watson AI XPRIZE, $5 Million XPRIZE Rapid Reskilling, $1 Million Next-Gen Mask Challenge and $500,000 Pandemic Response Challenge. .
About Alveo
Alveo is leading the transformation of the consumer health tech market with a low-cost, easy-to-use diagnostic platform that will change the way infectious diseases are detected and managed. With an initial focus on acute respiratory infections, including COVID-19, Influenza A/B and RSV, Alveo’s agile and dynamic be.well diagnostic platform can be adapted to detect a wide range of diseases that threaten public health. Affordable access to real-time results will transform the way individuals, healthcare providers and public health professionals identify and manage disease outbreaks. With be.well, we will know sooner, act faster and make better-informed decisions toward personalized intervention options that benefit individuals and the entire population.
