Hong Kong’s Prenetics aims to make Covid-19 testing quick and easy at home through Circle HealthPod’s reusable system

Circle HealthPod can be used to detect infectious diseases, starting with Covid-19

The technology has been developed at Oxford University and has a sensitivity of 96 per cent and specificity of 99.9 per cent when it comes to Covid-19 detection

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Danny Yeung Sheng-wu, chief executive officer and co-founder of Prenetics Group, demonstrating how a specimen capsule with a nasal swab is placed into a Circle HealthPod for a Covid-19 test, on August 6, 2021. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

Published: 7:00am, 10 Aug 2021Updated: 11:42am, 10 Aug 2021

Hong Kong-based Prenetics has launched Circle HealthPod, a reusable rapid detection system for Covid-19 testing at home.

The device will let households manage their health with fast, accurate and lab-quality testing when and where it is needed, said Danny Yeung, the company’s CEO. The HealthPod will work with single-use molecular capsules for all infectious diseases, starting with Covid-19.

“For now, we have launched a capsule for Covid-19. By summer next year, when you go to Watsons shops, you will be able to buy [HealthPod] capsules for the detection of influenza and STDs [sexually transmitted diseases],” Yeung said.

The launch comes as Prenetics reportedly merges with Artisan Acquisition, a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) backed by Adrian Cheng Chi-kong, the third-generation scion of Hong Kong’s third-richest family according to Forbes. The transaction will value the new entity at US$1.3 billion or more, according to a report by CNBC last month.

The results of a coronavirus test using a HealthPod can be displayed on the device as well as a mobile phone app. Photo: Handout

Yeung declined to comment on the SPAC merger, but said Cheng had become an investor last year. “I discussed it with him late last year. He is now our investor and we are part of Adrian’s health care ecosystem,” he said.

The HealthPod can do more than 1,000 tests and is intended for both symptomatic and asymptomatic individuals aged two and above. It will require users to collect a specimen with a nasal swab and insert this swab into a specimen capsule, which goes into the molecular capsule for Covid-19. The molecular capsule will, in turn, will be placed inside the HealthPod. The result will be ready and displayed on the device and on mobile apps in 20 minutes.

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