Escondido company developing rapid test for COVID-19 – The San Diego Union-Tribune

An Escondido company has teamed up with scientists at UC San Diego Health to develop a new rapid test for the virus that causes COVID-19, which can be scaled up to analyze as many as 100,000 samples in a day with equipment readily available in hospitals throughout the United States and the world.

Menon Biosensors, Inc., developed technology called the molecular mirror that can analyze samples rapidly, in mass batches and at a lower cost than existing tests, said Suresh Menon, CEO and founder of the company.

Menon said his company is working with UCSD Health to verify the accuracy and reliability of the test, and the two entities applied last week to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for emergency authorization to roll out the test at labs across the country.

The team of Menon and UCSD is also among 20 finalists for the $6 million X Prize, a competition that drew more than 200 teams from throughout the world to develop a faster, cheaper and easier-to-use coronavirus test. The top five teams are expected to be announced this month, according to the organizations web site.

This approach allows for accurate and rapid mass diagnostic capability without false negatives, Menon said. The key is to leverage existing infrastructure so we can move quickly to implement this.

David Pride, director of molecular microbiology at UCSD Health, who is overseeing trials of the new testing method at his lab, said the tests accuracy is equivalent to that of existing coronavirus tests, at a cheaper cost and much more rapid pace.

Why not do them thousands at a time? Thats the benefit of using this new technology, Pride said.

Menon said the molecular mirror technology starts with a sample of mucus or saliva taken with a swab from a patients nose or mouth. The sample is then mixed with a proprietary reagent and heated, which causes molecular tags to attach to the viruss RNA.

The samples, in batches of thousands, can be placed into a magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI machine, like those found at hospitals and clinics around the world. The scan produces a visual signal of the presence of the virus that can be read and diagnosed, Menon said. Another type of machine, called nuclear magnetic resonance or NMR, can also be used.

Currently, in the U.S. alone, there are some 10,000 MRI machines, as well as 10,000 NMR systems, Menon said. Since thousands of samples can be scanned in an MRI at one time, he said, the new test offers the potential to test huge swaths of the U.S. population in a single day.

The current standard test for coronavirus, called PCR, requires a specialized machine with a much lower capacity for testing samples, increasing the cost and reducing the speed at which results can be obtained, Menon said.

The molecular mirror technology behind the rapid coronavirus test grew out of technology that Menon originally developed to detect biological weapons, as a contractor for the U.S. departments of Defense and Homeland Security.

Last summer, with the COVID-19 pandemic in full swing, Menon and his company began to adapt the technology as a diagnostic test for the coronavirus, Menon said.

His company first worked with scientists at SDSU to apply the technology to non-clinical samples, and then with UCSD to test samples from patients, Menon said.

We spent some time to be absolutely sure this works, he said.

Once the application for emergency use authorization is submitted to the FDA for approval, the UCSD lab can immediately begin using the new testing method, Pride said. If the application is successful, he said, within four to eight weeks, the method will be available for any lab to use.

Because the new testing method relies on MRI machines that are currently available in hospitals and clinics, said Pride, There wont be a problem bringing this technology to the masses.

Rapid and inexpensive testing is necessary before schools and businesses can begin to reopen safely, Pride said.

Currently, scientists believe the molecular mirror test developed by Menon can detect the existing, known variants to the coronavirus that have emerged, said Pride, and if the virus mutates into new variants in the future, the test can be easily adapted to detect them. The test can also be quickly adapted to new viruses, Menon said.

Menon Biosciences was founded in 2013, and its offices were originally in Rancho Bernardo, before they were moved to Escondido two years ago. Menon, a native of Kerala, India, earned a bachelor of science degree from Mumbai University, and a doctorate in engineering science from Pennsylvania State University. He holds more than 100 patents and trademarks.

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Escondido company developing rapid test for COVID-19 - The San Diego Union-Tribune