MEDSCAPE.COM: Antigen Tests: After Pandemic Success, Time for Bigger Role?
Inspired by Senso’s ‘Future Dx’ series, Medscape looked at the impact of the Pandemic on diagnostics innovation… full link below…
““The pandemic familiarized people with the tests, said Jeremy Stackawitz, CEO of Senzo, a start-up in vitro diagnostics company developing an amplified LFT platform for rapid tests for flu, tuberculosis, COVID, and Clostridioides difficile. People liked using them. Physicians generally accepted them. It works great with tele-doc. It works great with personalized medicine. Now, he said, people used to the COVID self-tests are asking: “Where is my strep test? Where is my sexual health test?”
”Stackawitz, the Senzo CEO, predicts that as more LFT self-tests become available, more people will seek care, just as they did with the COVID rapid tests. A 22-year-old who thinks he has chlamydia may balk at going to a doctor right away, he said. However, “if he can go buy a soda and a test at CVS, it’s different, it really is. With a little anonymity, people will seek care.”
”He has a vision shared by other experts: That testing technology will evolve so that after getting the results at home, people would follow through by sending those results to their healthcare provider and obtaining needed care or medication. In his opinion, this is superior to the traditional way, which often involves visiting a doctor with symptoms, going for tests, waiting for results, and then beginning treatment.”
”It would make more sense if you came in knowing your results,” Stackawitz said. “It’s a much smarter pathway, gives better outcomes for the patient, is much quicker and at much less cost. And it frees up time for doctors. I think most physicians would embrace that.””
To read the full article, please visit https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/996506