Pandemic Response Laboratory (PRL) partners with CIC Health to provide COVID-19 testing to U.S. schools

Low-cost pooled testing critical for safe reopening; PRL genome sequencing enables key variant tracking

April 13, 2021 – Two of the nation’s leading companies in the fight against COVID-19 – Pandemic Response Laboratory (PRL) and CIC Health – today announced that they are partnering to provide COVID-19 pooled testing to schools across the country . As children, teachers and staff return to in-person learning, low-cost centralized testing in schools is critical.

Under the partnership, CIC Health will help schools implement comprehensive testing programs, providing necessary materials, training, coordination, logistics and support. PRL, operated by Opentrons Labworks Inc., will conduct back-end laboratory work, including pooled testing for COVID-19 and genomic sequencing of positive pool results to track variants.

The Epidemic Response Laboratory, located in Brooklyn, NY, is a leading laboratory capable of concurrent school COVID-19 pool testing, variant tracking, and individual testing. CIC Health, based in Cambridge, Mass., is the leading provider of testing services to U.S. schools and the largest operator of Massachusetts' statewide school testing program. The company also currently operates three mass vaccination sites in partnership with New York State.

This new partnership comes on the heels of the Biden administration’s recent announcement that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will invest $10 billion from the American Rescue Plan to ramp up screening testing to help schools reopen, including 22.5 billion Billion dollars allocated to expand testing to underserved populations.”

“Today’s announcement is an important step in getting students across the country back into the classroom,” said Jonathan Brennan-Badal, CEO of Opentrons Labworks, Inc. “The Outbreak Response Lab will work with CIC Health partners are working together to provide schools with the aggregate testing and variant tracking they need to reopen. We are excited to expand these capabilities across the country."

"We are extremely pleased that Epidemic Response Laboratory is joining our national network of best-in-class laboratories," said Tim Rowe, CEO and co-founder of CIC Health. "PRL/Opentrons is a leader in innovative laboratory automation that enables low-cost, High-speed COVID-19 testing possible With this new partnership, we’re one step closer to our promise of safer in-person learning in America’s schools—one that keeps families safer and parents back to work. key part.”

As the country's schools return to in-person learning, the source pool testing approach adopted by CIC Health and PRL is the least expensive way to test students, teachers and support staff to quickly identify where COVID-19 may be present. When a positive individual is identified, subsequent rapid contact tracing and mitigation measures will be implemented to isolate the positive individual and contain the spread of the virus.

CIC Health’s in-school collection model is designed to minimize disruption to the school day by completing sample collection throughout the school in minutes. Results are usually returned early the day after the sample is collected. Importantly, CIC Health’s summary testing does not require the collection and storage of private health information in its computer systems — an approach that many parents and school districts appreciate.

PRL leverages Opentrons' advanced robotics technology to provide fast, accurate COVID-19 testing at low cost to government agencies, hospitals, businesses and schools. PRL also conducts large-scale viral genome sequencing to track COVID-19 variants and identify potentially dangerous new mutations.

PRL has launched four national COVID-19 testing centers to help children safely return to classrooms—its original lab in New York City, a new lab in Washington, D.C., and additional new labs coming soon in Los Angeles, California, and Seattle room. Washington State. PRL currently performs 30,000 to 50,000 PCR tests per day at its New York City lab, with capacity increasing to more than 500,000 tests per day as additional labs open across the country. PRL's work has been highlighted in CBS This Morning, WNBC New York, the New Yorker, New York Times and Wall Street Journal.

CIC Health has assisted with more than 1.5 million COVID-19 tests, primarily in schools, and administered more than 500,000 vaccine doses. Its work has been highlighted by CBS News, Fox News, NPR, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

About the Epidemic Response Laboratory

The tests for PRL are:

— Highly accurate: 25% more sensitive than industry benchmark PCR tests.

— Fast: 99% of PCR results are available in 24 hours or less, compared to the industry average of 48 to 72 hours.

— Affordable: PRL offers a range of batch-based testing solutions to its partners, including $25 per group test for up to 25 students, or just $1 per child — a cost that’s 50 percent less than the national average.

— Proven Technology: Since October 2020, PRL has processed more than 2.6 million tests for New Yorkers and currently tests 125,000 to 250,000 students and educators each month.