NEW YORK – The US Department of Health and Human Services' Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) awarded approximately $2.8 million in funding to four groups in June and July.
Part of the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response, BARDA awarded the contracts under its public-private partnership program called the Division of Research, Innovation, and Ventures (DRIVe) to Karius, Signature Science, In Diagnostics, and Tufts University.
Through its Agnostic Diagnostics initiative, BARDA awarded contracts to Karius and Signature Science to support the commercialization of diagnostics using metagenomic next-generation sequencing to detect any pathogen as part of future pandemic preparedness.
The Karius contract is valued at more than $600,000 and will be used to extend the firm's DNA pathogen detection capabilities to include RNA.
"Our agnostic test for DNA pathogens has already served over 60,000 hospitalized patients, and this new project brings our vision of rapid, comprehensive diagnostics for every patient one step closer," Karius CSO Tim Blauwkamp said in a company statement.
The Karius Test was granted breakthrough device designation in May from the US Food and Drug Administration for use with suspected lung infections in immunocompromised patients, and the firm recently raised $100 million in Series C financing.
The award to Signature Science, meanwhile, totals $665,355 and supports development of SEQ-OUT, an automated sample and sequencing library preparation platform with a turnaround time of less than three hours.
DRIVe granted contracts to In Diagnostics and to the trustees of Tufts University under its Lab at Home initiative.
In Diagnostics was awarded a $749,000 contract to support development of its Quic Liver & Kidney Test to measure four kidney and liver function parameters from a drop of blood using a phone.
Tufts was awarded $749,925 to support its distance-based paper analytical device, or dPAD, which uses synthetic receptors and fluorescent carbon dots for multiplexed quantification of cytokines, hormones, lipids, proteins, and small molecules.
The DRIVe Agnostic Diagnostics initiative also awarded a contract to BugSeq in July, as previously reported.