ITHACA, N.Y. (WSYR-TV) Rheonix has just received Emergency Use Authorization from the Food and Drug Administration for its COVID-19 test.
The fully automated test enables detection of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, directly from respiratory samples.
The test is designed to operate on one of the company’s workstations and will be able to return same-day test results in as little as four and a half hours.
“It’s just a very exciting time for the company, a great tribute to the 24 hour a day work people were putting in over the past three weeks to get this all tested, done, proven and delivered,” says Greg Galvin, President, and CEO of Rheonix.
In anticipation of approval, Rheonix positioned instruments at a number of Central New York hospitals, including Cayuga Medical Center just outside the City of Ithaca.
Galvin tells NewsChannel 9, “There’s an aspect to it, it’s nice to be doing it for our own community.”
As soon as Rheonix delivers the reagent kits for the tests, hospitals can turn on the machines and start running the tests.
“It’s just a big help to the community to be able to get results the same day or the next morning,” Galvin says.
Galvin uses the example of the drive up testing site set up by Cayuga Medical. He says the site is collecting samples all day, a currier runs tests back to the hospital and when the lab gets a batch of 24 they’ll run the Rheonix test.
Results can come back in about four and a half hours, which means if the lab is running the machine 24/7 it could do 120 samples a day.
Galvin tells “Which seems to fit very nicely in the volumes and economics of our regional hospitals here in Central New York.”
He adds that the FDA was able to grant Rheonix approval in about 30 days, which he calls, “lightning fast”.
