Nudgebox is the product of a small DNA testing company that was just a few months ago trying to gain a foothold in genetics and is now part of an effort to make British hospitals safer during the pandemic.
The company, DnaNudge, has won a £161 million ($211 million) order for 5,000 machines to test patients for coronavirus in hundreds of National Health.
For founder Christofer Toumazou, a professor at Imperial College London, it is the culmination of months of effort to repurpose a toaster-sized machine he originally developed to analyze key pieces of DNA so users could tailor their diets based on their genetic makeup. Now his lab will be used to screen patients arriving at hospitals for surgery, cancer treatment and other procedures that could transmit Covid-19.
His machine, the Nudgebox, gives results in 90 minutes and doesn't require sending samples to a lab. It can also identify the common flu and another lung disease known as respiratory syncytial virus.
The UK government has also ordered 450,000 tests from DNA testing company Oxford Nanopore Technologies. The innovative diagnostics are the latest examples of British science being developed to fight the pandemic, along with the vaccine being developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca Plc.
Sensitive issue
Coronavirus testing has become a sensitive issue in the United Kingdom after the country's early efforts to speed up diagnosis. Thousands of tests ordered last spring proved faulty, preventing the increase in Covid-19 detection envisioned by Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government. Britain has suffered more than 46,000 deaths, the most of any European country.
Graham Cook, professor of infectious diseases at Imperial College London, initially said he didn't think Toumazou's device would be useful.
Some of the Nudgeboxes have already been rolled out to 8 hospitals and healthcare centres in London, where doctors and nurses can use them to quickly determine whether new patients should be isolated.
The moment of funding
As Toumazou watched the pandemic unfold and overwhelm the health system's resources, his biggest concerns were for his children.
So he went to his biggest investor, former Thai prime minister and mobile phone Thaksin Sinawatra, who agreed to pump more money into the business.
Nudgebox has managed to move from analyzing human DNA to identifying the genetic material of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
