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DISA signs agreement with NUS to commercialise new saliva-based Covid-19 ART kits

Atiqah Mokhtar
Atiqah Mokhtar • 2 min read
DISA signs agreement with NUS to commercialise new saliva-based Covid-19 ART kits
The technology was co-developed by SingHealth Duke-NUS Academic Medical Centre and the NUS.
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DISA has announced that a subsidiary of the company, Digital Life Line, has signed a tri-party licensing agreement with the National University of Singapore (NUS) and Singapore Health Services (SingHealth) on Dec 8 for the use of their new saliva-based Covid-19 antigen rapid test (ART) technology.

This technology was co-developed by SingHealth Duke-NUS Academic Medical Centre and the NUS. Dubbed the Parallel Amplified Saliva rapid POint-of-caRe Test (PASPORT), the technology produces results in minutes, without the need for additional equipment or specially-trained personnel.

In view of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, Digital Life Line plans to commercialise the new saliva-based ART kits, subject to Digital Life Line’s ability to obtain approval from the relevant regulatory authority.

According to DISA, the company plans to bundle the saliva-based ART kits with a system that is capable of reading the results of ART cassette and accordingly, authenticate and automate the delivery of tampered-free test results to the intended recipients or authorities. This system includes an automatic self-test kiosk and a professional-administered mobile application.

“Our system removes the administrative burden of the business owners who are required to do mandatory regular ART tests for their workers. We will be using DiSa Serialization technology to tag each unique user to an ART kit for track and trace purposes making it impossible for the user to tamper the test result. This technology has been used in [the] US retail industry since 2017 to prevent theft and return fraud,” says Eddie Chng, managing director and group CEO of DISA.

Digital Life Line is a 93% owned subsidiary of DiSa Digital Safety, which in turn is a wholly-owned subsidiary of DISA.

See also: BioNTech beats estimates as vaccine maker pursues more diseases

Shares in DISA closed up 0.1 cents or 100% higher at 0.2 cents on Dec 8.

Photo: Mufid Manjnun/Unsplash

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