UK team develops smartphone-based in-vitro test system

42 Technology’s invi concept – an app that works in tandem with a smartphone or tablet’s accelerometer, touchscreen, camera or location details – could allow diagnostics companies to develop a new generation of accurate, repeatable ‘point of care’ (POC) tests without the expense of dedicated reading equipment.

The company - based in Cambridge, UK,  adds that invi could also give patients, communities and their healthcare providers easier access to existing tests that previously may have been too costly for routine or widespread use because they needed an expensive customised reader.

“Most industry experts who have seen the inVi demonstrator picked up that it could be a key tool in epidemic tracking, where the tests could be of a lower fidelity but still prove useful,” added Andrew Chapman, head of 42 Technology’s healthcare business via email. “Especially if they were correlated with - for example - location data from the smartphone.  An example question that inVi could address was “What about the next H1N1 or Zika virus?  How would we test a population en masse?”