NEW YORK — UK diagnostics firm LumiraDx said on Wednesday that it has received $14.2 million in grant funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to develop a point-of-care molecular test for tuberculosis.
The test is being designed for use with the company's point-of-care LumiraDx platform, a portable system that runs a range of assays using microfluidic test strips including ones for COVID-19, D-Dimer, and HbA1c. The TB test, LumiraDx said, would be the first molecular test to run on the platform.
LumiraDx said that the grant money would enable it to provide TB testing at a lower cost than current tests for the disease, as well as adapt the system for use with tongue swab samples to making testing easier.
"The advancement of our TB molecular test signifies an important step forward in LumiraDx's mission to increase access to accurate and affordable testing worldwide as well as an important step forward in our molecular testing technology," LumiraDx CEO Ron Zwanziger said in a statement.