The arms race in COVID-19 testing has a new player, with a unique strategy. For any business that requires large gatherings of people in close-quarters, Relay Medical may hold the missing piece to return that business to its pre-Corona Virus glory.
On the morning of September 8th, James Harris of www.moneytrendalert.com issued an update highlighting Relay Medical’s investment in Fio Corporation in exchange for a royalty on their mobile test tracking devices. The transaction between the two companies flew under the radar for many in the investment world, but Harris wrote that Relay, “has the potential to solve the COVID-19 problem for hospitals, airports, sporting events, conferences, cruises, office real estate, concerts, schools, military bases, mines… basically any location with high-price points of entry, and large congregations of people.” That is a bold claim, worthy of investigation.
Relay Medical envisions a world where instead of masks, mass quarantines, or rushed vaccines, citizens can choose to take a rapid response COVID-19 test in specific locations to allow for normal entry. The COVID-19 result is read by their mobile tracking and recording device, then the information gets stored on cloud servers, for easy contact tracing. Testing individuals as a percentage of costs would be too expensive for most businesses, but tacking on $20-$30 and 10-15 minutes of triage to high priced venues, is a small price to pay for large gatherings and events, to ensure the public’s health and safety. Previously, a bottleneck to the mass testing strategy was that administering tests and recording results had to be done by an individual. Relay Medical claims their Fionet devices will enable faster testing with no risk of human error, while fusing automated data storage abilities.
While it will be interesting to see which businesses decide to utilize this technology, the Fionet device has actually been used as a method of virus control for many years. Fio has completed over one million tests tracking ebola, dengue, malaria, and HIV across four continents. The device was actually financed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, in 2014. Relay Medical simply repurposed Fio’s device for COVID-19.
Harris notes that investors who purchase Relay’s stock are buying the future income stream generated from Fio’s hardware devices. For every test and data entry, a small amount of revenue is recorded for Relay, and as more devices in the world test various points of entry, more income will be generated for shareholders. Additionally, the system can be adapted to any rapid response test. Therefore, as testing innovation increases and existing tests become obsolete, Relay’s income stream would remain at points of entry for large gatherings.
If Relay’s new technology proves to be effective in protecting the public’s health and safety, then people would have another option instead of taking a rushed-to-market vaccine. Certainly, many struggling businesses are in need of a near-term solution. While the world continues to adapt to ‘the new normal,’ Relay Medical is offering an opportunity to actually make life more normal.
