Mammoth Biosciences, South San Francisco, Calif, has received a contract from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as part of the $1.5 billion Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics (RADx) program, making it the first CRISPR-based initiative to be funded by the program. The award will help scale Mammoth Biosciences’ CRISPR-based Detectr test onto high-throughput automated platforms in commercial labs for covid-19 diagnostics at an accelerated rate, increasing access to accurate tests with faster turnaround across the country.

The Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics Tech (RADx Tech) program specifically aims to support the development and commercialization of innovative technologies to significantly increase the US testing capacity for SARS-CoV-2.

“CRISPR has the potential to help curb the covid-19 pandemic and relieve the testing shortage,” explains Trevor Martin, PhD, co-founder and CEO of Mammoth Biosciences. “We are honored to receive this support for our CRISPR-based platform to bring high-throughput, accurate testing to more people, at a time when it’s needed most.”

The Mammoth Biosciences SARS-CoV-2 Detectr assay uses CRISPR technology, which provides a simpler workflow and significantly faster turnaround time compared to conventional PCR methods. With the support of the RADx program, Mammoth Biosciences will scale the manufacturing of its proprietary Detectr platform to provide a high-throughput, sample-to-answer turnkey solution for commercial laboratories to enable a multi-fold increase in testing capacity. Recently, the University of California, San Francisco received emergency use authorization (EUA) approval from the FDA to use Mammoth Biosciences’ CRISPR-based Detectr reagent set for detecting SARS-CoV-2.

This project is supported by the NIH Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics (RADx) program and has been funded in whole or in part with Federal funds from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, under Contract No. 75N92020C00011.

For more information, visit Mammoth Biosciences.