Alameda Firm Named Winner In $6M Coronavirus Testing Competition

ALAMEDA, CA — Four California tech companies were named winners in XPRIZE $6 million Rapid COVID Testing competition Tuesday. Alameda's Alveo Technologies was among the winning Golden State teams.

XPRIZE, a prominent technology contest organizer based in Los Angeles, launched a worldwide challenge last July to find innovators who could develop a fast, affordable and easy coronavirus test to meet a demand for testing as the virus circled the globe over the last year.

"California innovation and ingenuity strikes again," Gov. Gavin Newsom said, tweeting about the contest Wednesday morning.

Three of the winning California companies are headquartered in San Diego County.

Each team had to develop tests that had a maximum turnaround time of 12 hours to deliver results, according to XPRIZE.

The Alameda firm was awarded for its be.well coronavirus test. Alveo Technologies will get $500,000 up front and is slated to receive another $500,000 over the next few months if the company is able to successfully mass-produce its test.

The company said it is in the process of seeking emergency use authorization from the federal government to place it on the market in the U.S.

The be.well test recently won approval in the United Kingdom, the European Union and several Scandinavian countries, the company said in a statement.

The contest drew over 700 competing teams, which was narrowed down to 219 semifinalists. In December, XPRIZE announced 20 finalists that had to send testing kits to laboratories for clinical validation.

A panel of judges — made up of healthcare workers and experts — reviewed each testing platform.

"The market for rapid COVID-19 tests has thus far been defined by high costs, low accessibility, long times to treatment and inconsistent performance," said Alveo's chief financial officer Julianne Averill in a statement.

Averill added that the award, combined with another award of the CE Mark for European regulatory approval, demonstrates that the company's test could help "transform the COVID-19 rapid testing market."

Beyond the contest, a $50 million COVID Apollo Project lead by a coalition of science investors will conjoin with OpenCovidScreen and XPRIZE to help accelerate "the best ideas, technologies and innovations to market and scale them," according to XPRIZE.

"While vaccines are important, we cannot rely on them alone to prevent the spread of the coronavirus and future outbreaks, especially not until they are provided around the world, en masse and at-scale," said Jeff Huber, president and co-founder of OpenCovidScreen, in a statement.

The winning teams of the contest were:

• Reliable LFC, LLC, Antigen Testing, Carlsbad
• ChromaCode, RNA Testing, Carlsbad
• Mirimus, RNA Testing, Brooklyn
• La Jolla Institute for Immunology, RNA Testing, La Jolla
• Alveo Technologies, RNA Testing, Alameda