Pattern Takes on Covid

Startup Pattern Computer Inc. is seeking  FDA approval for a rapid Covid testing device that uses two drops of spit to diagnose Covid in a mere three seconds and confirms the virus with 98.5% accuracy. It can also distinguish other viral diseases at a 70% predictive rate.

“We have the world’s fastest, most accurate, highest throughput device than anyone in every country in the world,” says Mark Anderson, Pattern Computer’s chief executive. “It will cost the least, probably below $10.”

Redmond-based Pattern Computer, or PCI, has signed a production contract with undisclosed partners for the testing device, which it named ProSpectral.

Pattern is also seeking certification for the hardware and simultaneously seeks governmental approval for the device in Australia, Chile, Germany, and India, where Anderson says the company is already working with partners and conducting trials.

ProSpectral was designed to make thousands of tests an hour for use in large venues such as airports, schools, stadiums and concerts. 

“A Covid test that is very inexpensive, one with good results, is the holy grail,” says Omid Moghadam, CEO of Arkansas-based Namida Lab Inc., a diagnostic test maker that pivoted briefly to Covid-19 antibody testing when the pandemic hit. “Imagine if we had something like that when we had travel restrictions. To pay under $10 at an airport? That would be a game changer.”

Back in 2020, J. Ben Brown, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory who is also a PCI consultant, had suggested that Pattern’s technology could be potentially useful in infectious disease diagnostics when Covid-19 entered the news. 

PCI partnered with Los Alamos National Labs and Cantor BioConnect for initial data collection and pilot tests. The company designed the device using commercially available subcomponents, combined with the hardware, software and mathematical expertise of its internal team.

PCI focused on a test using saliva since it is readily available, non-invasive and wouldn’t require any additional chemical reagents. The only disposable element of the test is a small plastic cuvette and collection aid.

Roughly 400 groups seek FDA approval for Covid testing devices, a market worth billions.

Many of the 20 or so FDA-approved devices on the market are antigen tests that require a nasal swab and take 10 minutes or even a day to return results. Some of the Covid-19 diagnostic tests are authorized only for specific uses, according to the FDA. Only a device designed by engineers at MIT and Harvard University seems to be taking an approach using saliva, but its table-top device takes an hour to detect the virus.

Pattern Computer began work on its device in early 2021 in the midst of the company’s work on cancer. Anderson says it took the company about six months until its first manufacturable and field-testable prototype was in hand. He hopes the device gains FDA approval soon.
 
“We are doing more data testing at the request of the FDA regarding confounding agents like cough drops, gum and other diseases,” Anderson says. “We have alliance partners and are working in parallel in other countries to go as fast as we can. We’d love to go faster if we could.”

“I suspect that in the near future, as we walk through TSA security at an airport, part of the screen will be for infectious diseases,” Brown says. “The implications of this technology for public safety and health, especially disease surveillance, are enormous.”