Dr Scott Gottlieb told CNBC on Monday that he believes Yale University’s saliva-based coronavirus test is a major development in the United States’ pandemic response.
“I think it’s very important,” Gottlieb said on “Squawk Box” after the Food and Drug Administration’s decision to authorize emergency testing on Saturday.
The test, developed by Yale University, is used on NBA players and staff during the relaunch of the league in Florida. Yale described the test in a press release as “simpler, cheaper and less invasive” than the common method of coronavirus testing involving a nasal swab.
In addition to not needing a nasal swab, Yale’s speech test has numerous features that should help improve coronavirus testing in the US, said Gottlieb, who heads the FDA’s Trump administration. May 2017 to April 2019.
“It is also cross-validated on almost all popular testing platforms,” Gottlieb said. “That it’s easy to use. It’s probably not in limitation due to shortcomings in the test supply chain.” He added, “It’s something we can roll out in a very broad way.”
Yale said it is collaborating with a research institute also based in Connecticut, Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine, on developing a strategy to conduct its speech test “for a wider audience.”
The US has faced several challenges in testing for the coronavirus throughout the entire pandemic, including shortage of supply chain and long delays in returning results. Gottlieb has been critical of the lack of a nationwide testing strategy to target resources to hot-spot communities.
Beyond Yale’s speech test, Gottlieb said he expects other additional variants of coronavirus tests “to be available in the US next month.”
Specifically, Gottlieb said lateral flow tests, which provide a reading on a device such as a pregnancy test, could soon hit the U.S. market. He said they are popular in other countries and because they can deliver results in 10 to 15 minutes, they could be used to test for the coronavirus in schools and offices. “You put a sample” on a piece of paper, and then you throw some liquid on paper, he explained.
“What you will see is a lot of this innovation coming on the market at the same time. This has been working for months, and it takes time to move this through the development process,” Gottlieb said.
“But I think we’re getting to the point at the moment that you’ll see a real explosion in testing capabilities and you will not be relying on lab-based testing, which has been a shortcoming,” he added.
Announcement: Scott Gottlieb is a CNBC contributor and board member of Pfizer, start-up of genetic testing Tempus and biotech company Illumina.
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