Given that the COVID-19 is a new type of virus, the development of the vaccine is under development. There is no certainty when a commercial product will arrive. The success of Asia in particularly Hong Kong in controlling the spread of COVID-19 is the detection at the port of entry. The current detection method uses the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) technology, which is costly and slow. It requires dedicated PCR machines and well-trained staff to do the testing. So the scale is limited. The accuracy depends on the quality of the test kit. The market needs a low-cost alternative to PCR technology. Fortunately an Israeli start-up NewSight Imaging Technologies demonstrated their sensor technology can be incorporated in a spectrometer to detect impurities, bacteria and possibly COVID-19 in the fluid. (1). NewSight is currently starting the collaboration with medical institutes to explore the feasibility of COVID-19 detection. NewSight believes that with the assistance of machine learning, the accuracy will be improved and the speed of detection will be brought under 1 second at a much lower cost than current PCR technology.
In a recent online competition “Coronavirus Battle in Europe” which took place on April 22, 2020, startups all over the world pitches their ideas to detect, control and treat COVID-19. More than 50 European Venture Capital experts and investors are on the Jury Expert Board, including 500 Startups, Target Partners, Acrobator Ventures and Emerald Technology Ventures. NewSight was placed third among 20 finalists. The success is remarkable given that the first two places go to medical startups. (2)
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