Jon Brennan-Badal is the CEO of Pandemic Response Lab, which supplies excessive throughput Covid-19 diagnostic testing to assist New York Metropolis’s faculties, well being programs and communities. In response to emailed questions, he shared how the corporate is increasing its capabilities to focus on new illness areas and bridge the entry hole many communities face on the subject of diagnostic companies.
Why was the Pandemic Response Lab began?
Originally of the Covid-19 pandemic when circumstances started to soar, it turned clear a quickly scalable molecular testing mannequin was essential to combating this virus. The Pandemic Response Lab was based to fill this want. By leveraging our mother or father firm Opentrons Labworks’ laboratory automation gear, we’re capable of provide excessive throughput Covid-19 diagnostic testing to straight assist New York Metropolis’s many colleges, well being programs and communities. As well as, our non-diagnostic genomic surveillance capabilities are on the frontlines for detecting and monitoring future variants and guaranteeing our group can reply successfully to surges in circumstances. As Covid-19 begins to enter an endemic state, PRL is concentrated on increasing its capabilities to focus on new illness areas and bridge the entry hole many communities face on the subject of diagnostic companies.
Jon Badal, Pandemic Response Lab
What particular want/downside are you looking for to handle in healthcare?
Right this moment, excessive testing prices and restricted healthcare entry are obstacles for a lot of populations to acquire important well being insights via diagnostic testing. As we’ve seen with the Covid-19 pandemic, this entry disparity straight impacts our public well being response to illness outbreaks and results in even poorer well being outcomes for our communities. PRL’s mission is to bridge this divide by offering quick and inexpensive diagnostic choices for communities throughout the nation.
Whereas PRL could have been born within the coronary heart of the pandemic, our mission expands past Covid-19. With a profitable basis in place, PRL is now capable of provide medical laboratory companies for a wide range of ailments. Simply this previous month, we launched our concise respiratory panel, which concurrently checks 4 viruses: SARS-CoV-2, influenza A and B, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), all at a price decrease than many Covid-19 solely PCR checks. This is a superb instance of how our know-how might be utilized to decrease prices and supply higher entry to healthcare.
What does your product(s) do? How does it work?
PRL’s basis is constructed on laboratory automation. Because it was based in 2020, PRL has scaled its pipeline and operational effectivity to new heights. Our New York lab alone now has a every day take a look at capability of fifty,000 checks, with most outcomes delivered in beneath 24 hours. The extraordinary processing quantity and turnaround time are one of many basic causes we’ve develop into town’s main Covid-19 testing companion.
On prime of our excessive throughput Covid-19 diagnostic capability, PRL has developed a non-diagnostic sequencing workflow for speedy variant detection and monitoring. PRL has typically been the primary to determine variants of concern in New York. For instance, PRL first recognized Beta and Omicron variants in New York State, offering the world with important time to develop a sturdy public well being response. With this profitable bedrock in place, we’re thrilled to broaden our capabilities to assist new illness testing.
Is that this your first healthcare startup? What’s your background in healthcare?
I’m the CEO of Opentrons Labworks, which wholly owns and operates 4 enterprise models together with PRL. Opentrons supplies low-cost, versatile, easy-to-use laboratory gear for researchers to automate repetitive handbook R&D operations, enabling them with open-source know-how to streamline laboratory processes. After Covid-19 started to clutch the world two years in the past, the staff and I noticed how Opentrons’ automation may very well be used to assist New York Metropolis’s well being response, and thus, the Pandemic Response Lab got here to be. Just like how Opentrons expands entry to laboratory automation, PRL expands entry to testing.
I’ve additionally had the chance to take a seat on the board for Genspace, a group biology lab providing STEAM teaching programs for folks of all backgrounds. Genspace helps to domesticate and educate the subsequent wave of researchers, a trigger I carefully determine with.
Who’s your buyer? How do you generate income?
PRL’s mannequin is extremely scalable and versatile to satisfy the wants of various organizations and sectors. Since 2020, PRL’s management staff has developed strategic partnerships to broaden testing past typical healthcare settings to soundly start reopening the financial system. That included testing at JFK Worldwide Airport and LaGuardia Airport, inside the elder care sector, leisure business, Fortune 500 corporations, manufacturing sectors and personal employers. These strategic partnerships play an integral position in our skill to scale our capability and fund the analysis and growth of our expanded choices.
Who’re your key buyers?
PRL and Opentrons are supported by plenty of buyers. Most not too long ago, Opentrons and PRL closed a $200 M funding spherical by Softbank Group Corp in September 2021. Along with Softbank, we’re additionally funded by Khosla Ventures and Sands Capital.
Do you may have medical validation to your product?
PRL has established three CLIA laboratories throughout the nation and thru these laboratories has provided Covid-19 testing as accepted by the respective state (or district) regulatory our bodies. Our PRL-SCV2 take a look at has acquired approval from the New York State Division of Well being, a regulatory physique, which is taken into account to have a few of probably the most stringent lab evaluations within the U.S.
As well as, our Rockville, Maryland lab has simply acquired CAP-accreditation, and we’ve utilized and anticipate to obtain the identical accreditation for our Lengthy Island Metropolis, NY lab as nicely. Making certain the very best customary of high quality and compliance is on the core of our mission, and we proceed to collaborate with regulatory our bodies to enhance public well being outcomes.
Picture: NicoElNino, Getty Photos
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