Wheaton entrepreneur Lee touts “game changing” European 60 second COVID-19 test
The Corowell COVID-19 Symptom Screening Test works differently than other COVID tests in that it focuses on combining the ability to smell with CDC diagnostic questions to determine if someone is suspected to have an infection.
Reduction in the ability to smell is often the first symptom and one of the most pronounced in those infected with COVID.
The test, based on a digital therapeutic platform, combines the test taker’s ability to smell by providing a card that they scratch, then sniff.
The test taker is asked to identify the smell from a suggested list of options.
The system then uses sophisticated math to determine the results.
The company says its test is 96% more accurate versus a traditional “PCR” test.
John Lee, the Wheaton-based managing partner for Pure Green Health, told DuPage Policy Journal it can make life easier for many.
“This is putting people back to activity again,” he said. “It is game-changing.”
Lee is advocating for the test to be taken in public as a way of showing those around the test taker that they are safe.
“It's a 60-second result,” he said. “Early detection, non-invasive olfaction — in other words, a ‘smelling test’ — with the highest level of sensitivity and efficacy of any test on the market in those critical early stages of infection.”
Lee said the game-changer for the Corowell test is that it can provide easy early detection were other tests cannot, and in less than a minute.
Lee noted that competing tests require a two-step process that takes days between testing and getting results.
“You have to take (other tests) over 48 to 72 hours and you have to play around with hazardous chemicals and you have to spend twice as much money,” Lee said.
Lee also touted another benefit for business owners.
“If you're a company or you have many employees and you have many locations, this is tracking how many people passed, how many people didn't pass, and you can find hotspots in real time,” Lee said.
Lee added that the Corowell test is the only COVID test to undergo a trial in a K-12 school setting even though the others are being used in the school system today.
“A clinical trial was done in a real-world setting – not controlled laboratory setting – 671 students in Germany were tested 7,000 times,” he said. “This is the only test right now on the market that has been given clinical studies on children from the ages of 10- to 18-years-old."
Whereas most studies have been done on adults in a controlled lab only, "this one was done with students. I think that's valuable to articulate.”
Lee said the test is ultimately aimed at getting society back up and going.
“It's just a way to allow people to go back to their normal lifestyle,” Lee said. “It’s for people that are vaccinated or unvaccinated, got the booster or didn't get the booster.”
The National Institutes of Health notes in the product’s landing page that the test is aimed at “objectively testing the sense of smell.”
A study by Monell Chemical Senses Center released by the journal medRxiv found such smell tests to be much more accurate than self-reporting.
The Corowell Group began manufacturing its rapid screening test in Germany prior to their release in the United States. It is now manufacturing the product in two states in the U.S.
The “class two” medical device was developed in Germany by medical technology entrepreneurs.
The product has been approved in 34 countries globally including the United States, European Union, Canada and many other countries.
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