Fulgent Genetics, Temple City, Calif, has extended its partnership with the New York City Department of Education (NYC DOE) and NYC Health + Hospitals for covid-19 testing through the remainder of the 2021 school year. The contract was awarded after a competitive process where Fulgent demonstrated its covid-19 testing capabilities, including its accurate and reliable test offerings, easy-to-use reporting systems, and fast turnaround times.
Through the agreement, Fulgent will provide covid-19 testing for thousands of students and employees at many K-12 schools in New York City on a daily basis. The NYC DOE will leverage Fulgent’s FDA EUA-approved RT-PCR test, a type of test believed to provide the highest level of sensitivity and specificity for covid-19 testing. Results will be available to individuals generally within 24 hours from the time when Fulgent receives and accepts a specimen to one of its labs.
“We have been working with the teams in New York City over the last several weeks, which has been going extremely well. The ongoing success of our covid-19 testing program is a major testament to the hard work of the teams in New York City and the Fulgent staff involved in the project,” says Brandon Perthuis, Fulgent’s chief commercial officer.
New York City schools will utilize Fulgent’s shallow nasal swab test, referred to as a mid-turbinate or anterior nares sample, for the tests. This is generally a comfortable, painless sample collection and is much less invasive than the deeper nasal swab originally used for covid-19 testing. To date, Fulgent has processed many thousands of student samples and the feedback from staff and families has been very positive. The testing program utilizes Fulgent’s in-house built enterprise platform to make the testing process very fast and easy to scale. Overall, the process takes about one minute for each student to complete.
For more information, visit Fulgent Genetics.
