If this works, it should be open-sourced so it can be manufactured and distributed at multiple locations, in many countries at once.
Also asking them to open-source their technology seems unfair, they're entitled to their share of pay for their hard work. The average engineer at this company probably makes much less than the average engineer at your FAANG company.
Also, you seize the company-- then what? Are you going to be able to ramp up production, etc, as well as the original product group could? Are you going to make them work on it at gunpoint?
Also, re: your other hyperbole point-- this test system is neat and fills a small gap in testing capabilities. It does not have the ability to "save millions of lives" but could be a nice tool among many to help slow things down. It doesn't scale well, so it's not how you'll do most tests, but there are scenarios where having a close-to-immediate result noticeably helps.
> Show me another breakthrough in the past 100 years that could save millions of lives ...
The past century is littered with thousands of examples of technologies that have contributed in this or bigger ways. The Rosch and Abbott machines are going to be the workhorses here, not the Cepheid ones.
* "Making" 20% if you happen to be successful, when most efforts fail, is not much of a prize-- especially if you lose your company in the process. Not even the most diehard gambler would play slots with those rules. ;)
* It's not going to save millions of lives. There's lots of tests available meeting different needs. It may save some lives, and will likely improve quality of life of those suspected of having COVID-19 quite a bit.
Identifying and quarantining is a complicated strategy and this test is not going to be the "workhorse" of it and is certainly not going to save millions of lives. Look to Rosch, Abbott, and others that have made pieces of already-deployed infrastructure to fill that need.
Mass testing literally will save lives. It worked in South Korea. If we could run 700M tests (slightly more than 2 per US resident, because you have to run at least 2 as an accuracy check) right now, I guarantee you we could get this under control.
Don't believe me? Believe this guy. He's a doctor:
> Testing, Testing, Testing: We must widely test our population, diagnose mild and even asymptomatic cases. Requires point of care diagnostics in doctor's office. We must advance these immediately to market. It means serology to know who was exposed and developed immunity. 9/n
(From https://twitter.com/ScottGottliebMD/status/12414195930144849... )
But, every incremental step helps here. Information is literally our only weapon against this disease right now, and testing is how you get that. Getting something like this into the hands of doctors on the front line right now is what is needed.
TL;DR: You are wrong on both counts.
The rapid test technology is something that Cepheid has been developing since before 2010. Now they have gotten approval to load reagents into the disposable cartridges their machine uses to test for COVID-19. There is no way to parcel off "just this test".
> Mass testing literally will save lives. It worked in South Korea. If we could run 700M tests
The Cepheid technology, as I've been patiently explaining to you, is about the dumbest way to run millions of tests.
The Cepheid test costs about $40 in raw materials, when a similar test from Roche has an underlying cost of $0.75, but it requires a much lower degree of operator skill and capital equipment. But because it requires less operator skill and less capital equipment, it can be closer to patients, especially in remote areas.
But you're too much into "rah rah let's nationalize the technology" before you even realize what it's useful for. Neat.
You don't think the US government can afford $80 ($40x2, because you should run 2 tests for confirmation) to test every resident of the country? Google tells me there are 327.2M people in the US. $80/person is only $26 billion. How much are we spending again on useless foreign wars that nobody questions? How much did the Fed spend in a failed effort to stabilize the market a couple weeks ago?
You also forgot, this test returns results in 45 minutes, whereas the other version takes hours. Reducing the time to result by an order of magnitude means you can test an order of magnitude more people. You said it right here: "... it requires a much lower degree of operator skill and capital equipment. But because it requires less operator skill and less capital equipment, it can be closer to patients, especially in remote areas."
So, what do you want, $26 billion in the US treasury, or every single human inside the US borders to be tested for coronavirus? Granted, that testing will not happen instantaneously, but it will happen far, far faster with this technology deployed at scale than not. And, I don't see Cephid moving to put 10 of these in every hospital in the country yet. Do you?
Let me put it to you another way: do you want to go the way South Korea has, or the way Italy has?
Of course, I also want to take advantage of the unique capabilities of the cartridge based system where they're most useful.
This is mostly because I'm not stupid. Neither is South Korea; they're getting fine just by with traditional, cost-efficient RT-PCR practices.
It isn't a good idea to fight economics in this crisis; beyond cushioning people in the very short term against quarantines. It will leave everyone in a very uncomfortable place if the incentives push individuals to avoid helping in the next crisis. Or worse; avoiding the entire field. The problem with all these 'experts should give away this lifesaving X for free' ideas is that then only an idiot would try to become a medical expert - anyone smart would try to go to Wall Street where they are allowed to make crazy profits.
The people working on this stuff are doing an insane amount of good. If there aren't a few billionaires minted in the medical community out of this something has gone terribly wrong - the incentives aren't there to guide resources towards preparedness.
The next crisis will come. People need to know that it is rewarding to be prepared.
The 'best software in the world' is often written by some dude, at home, working when he wants, possibly in his pajamas, possibly collaborating interactively with other people.
Software often does not need experience or teams, just intelligence, creativity, assertion. Although experience helps.
This kind of gear, or anything physical really, 100% requires the experience of various kinds.
If we had a really competent industrial board that understood medical technology, we could feasibly put together a kind of 'shared IP' contract very quickly.
Bidders could be quickly approved, sign up, get the plans, and start making according to specific terms.
Just because we're in a panic doesn't mean there can't be standards & controls - they just have to be rapid and risk-adjusted.
It could be a win-win-win even in a time of the pandemic.
I have little faith in our governmental leaders for the most part. It's not that they're not smart, it's that I don't think they generally have operational wherewithal to make decisions, push stuff through in such a crude and cold manner. Surely they are some, but you need a critical mass of them, and political backing as well.
1) there’s going to be a ton of point of care tests, in fact there already are. The bottleneck is FDA approval.
2) scaling up manufacturing of a device like this is HARD. It’s not some raspberry pi hobby kit.
This company is owned by Danaher, a fortune 200 or so which has many engineers and manufacturing sites. They’ll figure out a way to make as many as are needed.
[Since you have no problem taking other people's property].