We had a brief conversation with Tej Patel, the President and Cofounder of Fluxergy, to get an understanding of the Fluxergy 1-hour COVID test and what the company is trying to accomplish. Back in March of 2020, Fluxergy developed one of the first 1-hour COVID tests with the help of technology they had been developing for eight years. We’re talking about their Point of Care Diagnostic Platform, which simplifies the laboratory testing process. You can conduct an array of laboratory testing, on-site, and have a patient’s results in no time. The device is compact, low-cost, and smaller than a coffee machine (less than 1 sq ft). When I spoke to Mr. Patel, he compared it to carrying around a small PC. It weighs just under 15 pounds and can be easily utilized in the field.
It’s already been launched globally and that was described as the “focus” of the company right now. That’s important because this process is bringing testing accessibility to low-middle income countries around the world. Places that have little to no laboratory testing infrastructure now have this device as a possibility. This is allowing for a more comprehensive collection of data on various diseases. This platform can be used for a variety of lab testing, but COVID-19 presented an opportunity for Fluxergy to bring their device to market in an essential way. It could prove to be especially important in underserved areas here in America. They currently have their device on the ground in America for research use.
Think about all the rural areas in the country, places not exactly replete with laboratory testing infrastructure. Fluxergy provides a solution to community reopening and health screening via its portability in not just rural areas but also airports, hotels, hospitals, schools, and more. This could absolutely change the game on health care diagnostics, health care testing, and laboratory testing. There are so many medically underserved regions in this country, let alone the world. All of those places could now have access to low-cost testing, and it all comes in a device smaller than a coffee machine. I can’t stress enough what that means. It’s not a ton of medical equipment that needs to get lugged around. You don’t need access to a lab. You can have your results in an hour. This is extremely helpful when it comes to the homeless population, who would not have access to testing to stay healthy. Accessible testing for all is a big selling point on this platform.
Let me repeat that: accessible testing for all. COVID-19 isn’t going anywhere, anytime soon. We all know that by now. The Fluxergy Point of Care diagnostic platform could be a huge help in the fight to continue to monitor and understand the virus, especially with all this fear of the Delta Variant. The data that can be collected amongst the under-served populations could prove to be vital. My focus has been the COVID element for this article, as you’ve seen. That’s not where the uses end, however. The device has applications across multiple industries, including food, veterinarian, environmental, and forensics. It provides a technology with the potential for multimodality.
In Mr. Patel’s words, “The beauty of multimodality is the potential wealth of information provided to a healthcare provider, an amount of information typically reserved for 3 or 4 tests from different lab platforms. Our multimodal technology has the potential to consolidate a majority of critical lab tests to a single platform.”
This is a comprehensive diagnostic platform that can give you portability, accuracy, and speed. You can get your test results before even leaving the testing site. We are currently in a world where accessible laboratory testing is much more important than it’s ever been. The idea of bringing it to the front lines is game changing. The Fluxergy Point of Care Diagnostic platform has speed, accuracy, and low-cost on its side. This could be implemented among the under-served populations all over the world, allowing for accurate and life-saving data collection.
A lot of good can be done with something that provides such accessible testing to the medically underserved.
ABOUT FLUXERGY
Fluxergy started 10 years ago by Ryan Revilla and Tej Patel with a vision to democratize the world of laboratory testing, by making testing more accessible and affordable. Fluxergy’s platform technology enables us to understand our world and our health in ways which were never possible before. Fluxergy’s core guiding principles are:
– Scalability – All the technologies we build are scalable and accessible. Reducing price barriers and democratizing laboratory testing is key to our future.
– Modularity – We want to do every lab test you can imagine in the palm of your hand, enabling anyone the ability to understand their world better.
– Connectivity – Doing more tests faster lets us collect data to better understand the world around us. We want to help make sense of all that information.
John Tu joined the Fluxergy team as the primary investor allowing Fluxergy to leverage his team’s knowledge and experience in the semiconductor industry to support Fluxergy’s scale up, enabling our ability to create scalable low-cost technologies anyone can use.
Since Fluxergy has started, we have grown from a team of three in a garage to 80+ employees at Fluxergy’s technology and manufacturing campus totaling 70,000 sq. ft, cGMP-compliant and ISO13485:2016/MDSAP-certified. Our combined 27000 sq. ft state-of-the-art manufacturing facility and 16000 sq. ft. innovation development facility allow Fluxergy to continually develop new and exciting technologies that bring the lab closer to you.
For more information, visit CLICK HERE TO VISIT THE FLUXERGY WEBSITE.
RELATED ARTICLES
How the COVID-19 Pandemic Has Affected Dental Practices: One Year Later
Better Oral Hygiene Could Reduce COVID-19 Severity
Lessons from the Pandemic for Dental Practices: A Year Later
