HPR | FDA Approves Emergency Use for First Rapid COVID-19 Test Developed in Hawaiʻi

Oceanit CEO, Dr. Patrick Sullivan joined Hawaii Public Radio host, Catherine Cruz to discuss the ASSURE-100 Rapid COVID-19 Test. Their ten minute discussion covered the research & development that went into ASSURE-100, the FDA EUA process, and what comes next. You can listen to the full interview here.

During the interview, Dr. Sullivan discussed the underlying technology that ASSURE-100 was built upon. “This is the first of many things we plan to do. We created a platform technology,” Sullivan said. “We originally set out to look at diseases like cancer, we have a toolset for that. So our goal is really to address those issues.”

“But when the pandemic hit, we asked ourselves, what can we do to help make a difference and a rapid test is what we came up with, and took us a while to get there. Hawaiʻi doesn’t have a lot of the infrastructure but we were determined to do it,” he said.

Oceanit has been working on a breakthrough approach to AI for genomics, which could fundamentally alter medicine and usher in advances in digital medicine.

The interview aired on The Conversation on March 1, 2022. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. on Hawaii Public Radio’s HPR-1 station.