What You Should Know:
COVID-19 testing startup Curative Inc. and Gothams announced it has signed an agreement (phase one is $13m USD) with the U.S. Air Force to deploy its FDA-authorized oral fluid COVID-19 tests and comprehensive testing service to U.S. military personnel around the world.
In this initial agreement, Curative will rapidly establish a new laboratory facility, fully operational this week, which will process up to 50,000 tests per day for the presence of COVID-19.
In future phases of this agreement, Curative will establish eight testing locations across the U.S. to support testing for the U.S. population.
Curative Inc. a COVID-19 testing startup and Gothams announced it has signed an agreement with the U.S. Air Force to deploy its FDA-authorized oral fluid tests for COVID-19 and comprehensive testing service to U.S. military personnel around the world. Curative Inc. was founded to develop tests for sepsis in January 2020 and pivoted to COVID-19 in early March 2020 upon realizing the urgent need for test development and production in the United States.
Broad testing is critical to our nation’s ability to understand the COVID-19 pandemic, maintain operational readiness, and restart the American economy. In this initial agreement, Curative will rapidly establish a new laboratory facility, fully operational this week, which will process up to 50,000 tests per day for the presence of COVID-19. In future phases of this agreement, Curative will establish eight testing locations across the U.S. to support testing for the U.S. population.
COVID-19 Testing Availability
Curative has tested more than 75,000 people for COVID-19 and is currently processing approximately 6,000 test results per day in Los Angeles. Curative tests have an average turnaround time of 24 hours and the company is currently producing 20,000 collection kits per day. As part of this agreement with the Air Force, each Curative lab will have a daily capacity to examine 50,000 tests per day. Currently Curative has the capacity to scale to a network of 10 labs across the country for a total of 500,000 tests per day.
Curative worked with private contractor Gothams to establish a robust distribution channel that has enabled the company to rapidly scale its testing capacity. Through a collection of former Special Operations Command personnel, the Gothams team helped Curative build out testing capacity and establish a relationship with the U.S. Department of Defense that will bring its oral fluid COVID-19 testing service to the U.S. Armed Forces.
“Through our work with the City and County of LA, we have helped thousands of people access COVID-19 testing and have demonstrated an ability to scale our testing capacity quickly and efficiently,” said Fred Turner, CEO and founder of Curative. “Our oral fluid test reduces the strain on PPE and existing testing supply chains while being accurate and easy to use. We’re proud to be working with the U.S. military to rapidly scale this test to our global Armed Forces and beyond and are exceptionally thankful for Assistant Secretary Dr. Will Roper’s leadership in moving quickly to making testing widely available to save lives and restart the economy.”
