Sorrento Therapeutics (NASDAQ:SRNE)announces impressive results from an independent study conducted under real-world field conditions by INMEGEN (The Institute of National Genomics Medicine, Mexico).
The objective of the study was to evaluate the performance and validity of the COVISTIX rapid antigen test, for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 in an unselected population and compare it to Panbio rapid antigen test and RT-PCR.
For the population tested with COVISTIX (n=783), sensitivity and specificity were 81% (CI95% 76.0-85.0) and 96.0% (CI95% 94.0-98.0), respectively.
In contrast, the sensitivity of the Panbio comparator test (n=2202) was measured at 62% (CI95%: 58.0-64.0%) and specificity at 99.0% (CI95%: 0.99-1.00).
This finding is significant as higher COVISTIX sensitivity means fewer false negatives, which is essential to managing the spread of and prevent COVID disease, in particular those cases linked to highly transmissible variants of concern such as the Delta variant.
Additionally, this superior sensitivity result is quite impressive in a real-world population of all-comers (vs in only symptomatic patients) utilizing an initial shallow nasal sampling protocol followed by an optional nasopharyngeal sampling, if desired.