 |
|
|
|||||
The worst part of any medical is waiting for results. That can be especially true of sexual health tests. Those conducted in person can take 2448 hours, but if theyre submitted via at-home collection kit and mailed to a lab, it can take even longer. A new test from diagnostics company Visby Medical, launching nationwide today is changing that. Now that it’s successfully completed a pilot period, the company is bringing a 30-minute, lab-accurate PCR test for three common sexually transmitted infections to women at home. From a self-collected vaginal swab, the $149.99 test can diagnose chlamydia, gonorrhea, and trichomoniasisthree common infections that can all easily be treated with antibiotics. It also connects patients who test positive with a healthcare provider via United Healthcares OptumNow telehealth service. If you tell somebody, I have an STD test for the home, what they think I mean is You’re going to give me a collection kit, I’m going to pee in the cup and send it back and get a result a week later, says Adam de la Zerda, founder and CEO of Visby Medical. With his machine, he says, all they have to do is close the lid and the test starts running, and in 30 minutes youll get your result. Cleared by the FDA in March as the first at-home diagnostic for these STIs, Visbys test is now going wide with the test following a smaller pilot launch on its site and via diagnostics platform Everlywell. It parlayed that approval into a funding round that in July had brought in $55 million, led by healthcare investment firm Catalio Capital Management. The company last raised money in 2022, when a $135 million funding roundfocused on developing the STI test and a point-of-care COVID and flu testvalued the company at more than $1 billion. According to PitchBook, it’s raised a total of $486 million [Photo: Visby Medical] To underscore the convenience element of the new test, Visby is also making it available for same-day delivery via GoPuff and DoorDash in 10 major cities including Las Vegas, Atlanta, New York, San Francisco, and Seattle. Orders can be placed via the Visby website, which helps identify the best delivery option for a buyer, and dispatched via one of the apps. It looks and feels just like ordering lunch, de la Zerda says. Its nobodys business what you just received from DoorDashit could be a bag of burritos or a Visby test. Visbys test is also getting a cosign from a competitor, with digital health platform Everlywell selling it. From test to treatment De la Zerda says that the STI test has been the companys goal since it was founded in 2012. Visby had just finished its initial clinical trials on a test for use in doctors offices when the pandemic forced a pivot to COVID, for which Visby developed a point of care test. Even then, the focus was at-home PCR, with Visby landing $19 million from a federal prize competition with an early, point-of-care version of the test. The FDA authorizationvia the agencys De Novo pathway for novel medical devicestook roughly a year from submission to approval, included Visbys app, which is powered by Google Cloud to decode the test results.The test itself demonstrated the ability to identify 98.8% of negative and 97.2% of positive chlamydia samples; 99.1% of negative and 100% of positive gonorrhea samples; and 98.5% of negative and 97.8% positive trichomoniasis samples. Visbys ability to say that its test is actually diagnosing STIsas opposed to other at-home STI screenings that require a lab test to confirm their resultsmeant de la Zerda wanted to build an easy way to be treated into the test process and price tag. We got a true diagnostic claim, de la Zerda says. That enabled us to go to folks like United Health, OptumNow, and say lets leverage that telemedicine platform you guys have built and create that connectivity for people.’ With a 24/7 provider network active in all 50 states, OptumNow can connect Visby users with a clinician and have a prescription sent to a local pharmacy within about 710 minutes, de la Zerda says. Its a powerful thing to enable somebody to test for a stigmatized condition in the privacy of their home and not just leave them hanging with a diagnosis, he says. Thats part of how Visbys test ended up on a competitors platform. Team of rivals Besides the Visby website and its delivery partners, the test is also being offered via Everlywell, a digital health platform that offers home testing on conditions that include fertility, STIs, food sensitivities, and immune health. STI specifically is an incredibly important, undertested epidemic where this [at-home] format lends itself to eliminating stigma and creating privacy, says Julia Cheek, founder and CEO of Everlywell. Though the company sells its own five-panel sexual health testing kit for, it functions as a blood and urine collection kit that users have to mail into a lab for results. Cheek says the speed and convenience of Visbys test made it an obvious choice for Everlywell, which serves a user base of 80% women. Its not fully comprehensive yet, but we want to be able to meet people where they are and offer them different options, she syas. We fundamentally believe the consumer deserves access to whatever test is available, accurate and gets them what they need. Everlywell has offered Visbys test since August, and she says users have responded positively, with both companies already planning to invest further in marketing the test to Everlywell users in 2026. Even as the STI test shows promise, de la Zerda sees todays wide launch as a starting point. If you rank the top 200 tests that people are running on a PCR machine, just about every single one of them we can have a Visby test to run it as well, he says. Its the same technology.
Category:
E-Commerce
With all the news in the quantum world this monthincluding DARPA’s new list of the most viable quantum companies, and Quantinuum’s announcement of “the most accurate quantum computer in the world“IBM, not to be outdone, put out a statement of its own. The top-line message: We’re doing great! IBM’s quantum program is hitting all the milestones it’s set out in its most recent road mapand it is accelerating progress toward a large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computer, by shifting production of its quantum processors out of its research labs to an 300mm quantum advanced 300mm wafer fabrication facility at the Albany NanoTech Complex. The move will double the speed at which IBM can produce quantum processors, and enable a tenfold increase in their physical complexity.The company also announced two new processors, which IBM Fellow and Director of Quantum Systems Jerry Chow told me, on a recent tour of the company’s lab in Yorktown Heights, represent the company’s two-pronged path moving forward. The IBM Quantum Nighthawk processor, which allows more complex computations with the same low error rates as its predecessor, is built for near-term “quantum advantage”applications that show an edge over classical (non-quantum) computing approaches alone. 300mm IBM Quantum Nighthawk wafer [Photo: IBM] By combining high-powered computing (HPC) with quantum processors, IBM believes that researchers will show verifiable examples of quantum advantage in 2026. The company has joined with Algorithmiq, Flatiron Institute, and BlueQubit to create an open, community-led “quantum advantage tracker” to systematically monitor and verify emerging demonstrations of advantage.The company’s experimental IBM Quantum Loon processor, on the other hand, is a step toward the company’s vision of large-scale “fault-tolerant” quantum computing, which it aims to realize by 2029. The Loon chip demonstrates a new architecture capable of implementing and scaling all the components needed for practical, high-efficiency quantum error correction. A year ahead of schedule, IBM also showed that using classical computing hardware, it could accurately decode errors in real-time, relying on efficient qLDPC (quantum low-density parity check) codes.“You can’t just wait for fault-tolerance,” says Chow. “Even when you get to those machines, you’re going to look at, how do you integrate with the classical side? How do you actually build all the tools and the libraries, all the software pieces [or applications]?” “You can already to start to build that with the machines today,” Chow continues. “They’re going to be at a different scale and more heuristic [trial and error] in nature. But it’s better to get on board than to just wait and have it show up on your doorstep and not know what to do with it.”
Category:
E-Commerce
What makes some people instantly likable? How can you make people want to be around you, to work with you, and follow your leadership? You may think it comes down to charisma that some people have and others dont. In fact, theres a simple habit that will make you instantly more likable. Its the secret behind magnetism, according to Emma Seppälä, lecturer at the Yale School of Management and author of The Happiness Track. In a piece for Psychology Today, she cites research showing that positive practicessmall moments of gratitude and caring toward other peoplecan turn you into one of those magnetic people others find irresistible. Showing genuine interest in others is one great example of a positive practice, Seppälä writes. That holds true whether its the person at the cash register, your co-worker, your roommate, or your family. Sounds obvious (and even boring), but too often were too wrapped up in our own concerns and stresses to take notice of others. Another positive practice is reminding yourself when someone seems inconsiderate or unfriendly that they may have a backstory that casts a different light on their behavior. When you are genuinely curious, attentive, and kind when you interact with others, you can shift that entire persons day, strengthen your relationship with them, and both of you will feel better after your interaction, she writes. Positive emotions are contagious Why do small changes like these make such a big difference? Emotions are contagious, both good and bad, as multiple studies have shown. If youre feeling stressed and you act grumpy, youll inspire other people to do the same. The reverse is also true. Positive emotions bring out the best in us, Seppälä writes. They help us think more clearly, connect better, and become more creative. When we feel emotionally safe, were more open and engaged. We naturally connect with others more easily. Our relationships improve. Seppälä has several suggestions for positive practices that can make a huge difference in how likable you are. Its well worth reading her entire article. But one really stood out for me, perhaps because its something I need to do more often myself. Its what she calls tiny rituals of care. This could be texting a friend every Monday to check in, writing a quick thank-you note, or ending the day with a few minutes of conversation on the phone with a relative who lives alone, she writes. Turning these small gestures into a habit, something you do regularly without thinking and that always fits into your schedule, is a very powerful way to harness the power of positivity. It can make you more likable, improve your relationships, and lift your own mood all at the same time. Theres a growing audience of Inc.com readers who receive a daily text from me with a self-care or motivational micro-challenge or tip. Often, they text me back and we wind up in a conversation. (Want to know more? Its easy to try it out and you can easily cancel anytime. Heres some information about the texts and a special invitation to a two-month free trial.) Many of my subscribers are entrepreneurs or business leaders. They know what an asset it is to have people like you and feel drawn to you. Should you give positive practices a try? Minda Zetlin This article originally appeared on Fast Companys sister publication, Inc. Inc. is the voice of the American entrepreneur. We inspire, inform, and document the most fascinating people in business: the risk-takers, the innovators, and the ultra-driven go-getters that represent the most dynamic force in the American economy.
Category:
E-Commerce
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||