The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today authorised the emergency use of cPass™, a world-first kit for detecting antibodies that neutralise SARS-CoV-2 easily, efficiently and quickly.
Where other similar tests can take up to several days, cPass returns results within an hour. It requires neither live virus cells nor complex laboratory procedures and is easy to use.
cPass was invented by Professor Wang Linfa’s team from the Emerging Infectious Diseases Programme at Duke-NUS, and co-developed with biotechnology group GenScript Biotech and A*STAR’s Diagnostics Development Hub.
WANG LINFA INVENTED cPASS EARLIER THIS YEAR TO SOLVE A TESTING BOTTLENECK
“FDA approval of cPass as ‘the first test that detects neutralising antibodies (against SARS-CoV-2)’ is an important landmark in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. As the first and only commercial kit with such capability, this serological test will have wide-ranging applications and is another demonstration of the high-quality science and translational research that distinguishes Duke-NUS and Singapore,” said Professor Thomas Coffman, Dean of Duke-NUS, at the time.
The addition of cPass to the arsenal of diagnostics was timely as it could be used to help verify the efficacy of vaccines, determine infection levels in different communities and support contact tracing measures as many countries were battling a surge in COVID-19 cases.
Reflecting on the moment when he received the news, Wang says, “The beauty of cPass is that it is such a simple concept but one that can have a huge impact. I was both relieved and incredulous that we had done what no one had done before by getting the FDA to approve a serological test for neutralising antibodies.”
“This is an incredible recognition for our team and the Singapore research and biotech landscape,” adds Wang. “The total critical mass of Singaporean biomedical R&D is less than one per cent of the world’s, and yet we are the international leader in this area for COVID-19.”