Update (3/23): Everlywell says its COVID-19 tests are not yet available for individual purchase, as planned. "Our frontline healthcare workers are in desperate need of testing. We have made the decision to allocate today’s test supply to hospitals and healthcare providers only. This shift is critically important as we seek to arm the frontline with the resources they need to prevent the spread of COVID-19," the company's website reads. See more via this updated post from our sister publication the Austin Business Journal.
Austin-based health tech startup Everlywell is poised to be the first U.S. company to begin sending out at-home COVID-19 tests, a milestone in the company's round-the-clock efforts over the past week or so to provide more testing options.
It could help people who suspect they have the developed the disease and have been screened by doctors get tested without the risk of spreading the coronavirus outside of their home while visiting a clinic or one of the drive-through testing locations emerging across the nation.
The company announced Wednesday evening that its initial supply of 30,000 test kits will be available to consumers on Monday. And that will likely just be the start. The company says it is reaching out to more labs equipped to process the tests and that it expects to scale its at-home COVID-19 tests rapidly in order to test and diagnois up to 250,000 people each week.
"As the COVID-19 public health emergency continues to worsen with community spread across the United States, there is an unmet medical need to broaden the access to testing for SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus in a responsible manner to complement and help alleviate the potential overload on healthcare systems and healthcare providers if testing was only available in the limited clinical setting," Dr. Frank Ong, the chief medical and scientific officer of Everlywell, said in a news release.
Consumers will be able to visit the company's website and complete a screening questionnaire to see if they qualify for a test. The tests will cost $135, and Everlywell said it will get no profit from the sales. After consumers complete the at-home tests, they can be overnighted to labs via safe shipping methods outlined by the CDC. Everlywell said results will be provided online within 48 hours of the lab getting the samples.
"Everlywell was founded to give people affordable, convenient access to lab testing. Never has our mission been more important," Julia Cheek, founder and CEO of Everlywell, said in the release. "Our team has been working around the clock with top scientists and laboratories in the nation to develop a test that we will make available at the lowest price possible while covering our costs, at no profit to the company. We have also reached out to government and public health officials to explore possibilities to provide it for free."
Everlywell's announcement as the number of cases in the Austin area continued to climb on Wednesday, reaching 23 cases. Austin health officials told the Austin American-Statesman that it had received about 1,000 testing kits total to use for on-site testing as of Wednesday morning. Health care workers, nursing home residents and other high risk individuals will be prioritized for those tests. (Learn more about what to do if you are sick from the city's COVID-19 website.)
The announcement that kits will be available next week follows a week of hectic work by the startup to connect with qualified testing labs. It had dedicated a pool of up to $1 million as an incentive for properly certified labs to help process tests. The effort offered up to $250,000 per lab to help expand its testing capacity.
The new test kits are a variation on what Everlywell was built to do. The company, which was founded in 2015 and has raised $50 million in investment, also provides at-home test kits for fertility, STDs and more than 30 other conditions.
