Neutralizing antibodies are a small percentage of antibodies that bind to sites on the virus and inhibit entry of that virus into the host. Unlike the many COVID-19 lab-based antibody test kits commercially available, cPass™ can detect functional neutralizing antibodies. Traditionally, measuring neutralizing antibodies requires the use of live virus, cells, highly skilled operators, and complex laboratory procedures that require several days in the laboratory to obtain results and limit their widespread use. In contrast, the cPass™ kit can be performed in most standard laboratories with a short turnaround time (approx. 1hr). cPass™ is also adaptable to high throughput and fully automated testing.

The cPass™ SARS-CoV-2 Neutralization Antibody Detection Kit was co-developed by Duke-NUS Medical School (Duke-NUS), a research-intensive graduate-entry medical school, GenScript, and DxD Hub. The kit has received provisional authorization by the Health Sciences Authority (HSA) Singapore, CE-IVD marking in Europe and emergency use authorization (EUA) by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Dr Sidney Yee, Chief Executive Officer of DxD Hub, said: "As a national platform which aims to accelerate the translation of R&D to clinically validated diagnostics, we are heartened to see this public-private partnership act very quickly to make the innovative cPass™ diagnostic test available to clinicians in Singapore."

Professor Wang Linfa from the Emerging Infectious Diseases Programme, Duke-NUS Medical School who invented this assay said: "Unlike other commercially available antibody tests which detect binding antibodies in general, the cPass™ platform was invented to specifically monitor functional neutralizing antibodies, and is the only antibody test approved by Health Science Authority (HSA) Singapore and FDA Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for that purpose."