Henrico company among national leaders in rapid COVID-19 testing

One of America’s leaders in rapid testing for COVID-19, which processes tests from all over the country, is based in Henrico County – and looking to expand.

Located in Innsbrook, GENETWORx medical lab was founded by Bill Miller in 2012 to specialize in pharmacogenomics, the study of how a person’s genetic makeup influences his or her body’s response to pharmaceuticals. In March, GENETWORx developed one of the earliest rapid COVID-19 tests, which only takes 24-48 hours to process, and is now processing about 10,000 tests per day, which come from as far as Florida and Arizona as well as Central Virginia.

Miller, CEO of GENETWORx and a 20-year veteran of the laboratory testing industry, says that when his company saw the CDC’s recommendations for developing tests, he knew they were going to need to be mass-produced.

“So we validated an instrument that can do anything between 800 and 1,600 an hour, and we also were able to get 99% sensitivity and specificity in our validation report,” Miller said. “So that was above and beyond what was required by the state.”

Part of the reason why it can take so long for someone to get the results of a test back, Miller said, is access to reagents – chemicals used in a molecular test that will react with whatever is being tested for. Some tests are closed systems, meaning that only one reagent will work in order to process them – typically one made by the same manufacturer.

GENETWORx’s test is an open system, meaning it can use several different reagents from different manufacturers. This increases the company’s flexibility and ability to process a larger volume of tests.

Another development made by Miller and his team was the elimination of the need for a nasopharyngeal swab. The nasopharynx is near where the nasal cavity meets the throat, several inches from the nostril. Scientists and medical officials previously believed that this was the closest place from which it was possible to get a sample to test for the virus, but in GENETWORx’s research, officials realized that if the virus has manifested itself in the nasopharynx, it is also in the middle of the nasal cavity.

“So you don’t really have to go up that far to get the same result,” Miller said. “At the beginning, we didn’t know what we do now, and as we learn, we continue to get better at it.”

GENETWORx now needs more manpower in order to meet the massive demand for COVID-19 testing. It’s expanding to a second building nearby and seeking to make numerous new hires, mostly in the registration, quality assurance, quality control and billing departments.

“We’re also expanding the lab to accommodate the instruments and reagents that need to go along with the testing,” Miller said. “And we are looking for molecular technicians and molecular technology assistants.”

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To view the job openings at GENETWORx, visit www.genetworx.com. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});