On September 16, 2020, Gauss Surgical, the leading developer of computer vision applications for healthcare, and Cellex, a leading biotechnology company specializing in point-of-care diagnostic testing, announced an exclusive partnership to launch a rapid, at-home and point-of-care COVID-19 antigen test. Wilson Sonsini advised Gauss with respect to the arrangement.
Cellex, which was the first company to receive an FDA Emergency Use Authorization for rapid COVID-19 antibody testing in April 2020, is in advanced clinical trials with a rapid antigen test that demonstrated nearly 90 percent sensitivity and 100 percent specificity in early trials. When paired with a newly developed, AI-powered application from Gauss that enables users to perform and interpret the test with a smartphone, its use can be expanded to aid in the rapid diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 infections. Users follow video instructions in the app to collect a nasal swab sample and perform the rapid antigen test. Within 15 minutes, the app prompts the user to scan their rapid test with their smartphone and then processes the image with an end-to-end neural network architecture optimized for the Cellex assay. The app informs the user if the test result is negative or positive for SARS-CoV-2 antigens within seconds. Gauss’s patent-pending, AI-driven assay reading technology overcomes the limit of detection of the untrained human eye and can also minimize inter-reader variability routinely seen in interpreting antigen test results. Put together, the solution will deliver fast and reliable results on an encrypted, HIPAA-compliant, consumer-friendly app.
The Wilson Sonsini team that advised Gauss in the collaboration includes Christopher Paniewski and Nayha Lang.
For more information, please see Gauss's press release.