MONTPELIER, Vt. & CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--On June 14, Vermont became the first state in the nation to vaccinate more than 80 percent of its eligible population with at least one dose, leading Governor Phil Scott to lift all remaining COVID-19 restrictions in the state. Today, state officials reiterated they are not letting up on keeping the virus at bay, and that a critical part of the state’s effort to keep moving forward is continued prioritization of COVID-19 testing.
The State of Vermont and CIC Health have formed a new partnership to facilitate testing at summer camps and in schools come the fall. CIC Health has tapped fellow Cambridge, Mass. based binx health to support the collaboration. Throughout the pandemic, Vermont has used testing as a tool to prevent virus spread, having conducted over 1.7 million tests as of June 16. This new partnership is a continuation of those efforts.
“Our success in having among the lowest number of COVID-19 cases in the country, and halting community spread is directly attributable to our widespread testing efforts,” said Vermont Commissioner of Health Mark Levine, MD. “Together, with strong prevention measures and a vaccination program that is number one in the nation, we built an effective strategy for responding to this global pandemic, but low rates are not zero. We may be in the last leg of the race against COVID-19, but we know that what we do in this final stretch is crucial. Testing our kids, teachers, and staff at summer camps, and at schools in the fall, is an important step in our shift from emergency response to long-term recovery,” Dr. Levine said. “Our goal is to keep Vermont as safe as possible, and to give our children the summer and school year they deserve. Partnering with CIC Health and binx health will help us to meet that goal.”
CIC Health has facilitated over 1.2 million vaccines and more than 2 million PCR tests, including testing for nearly 75 camps and more than 600 schools across 20 states. The company has worked with the State of Vermont since Fall 2020 on individual PCR testing for K-12 public schools statewide. The collaboration expanded to 26 state-sponsored public testing sites, and most recently, CIC Health and binx piloted an individual PCR testing program for students in preparation for the statewide program in the fall.
“I enjoyed the testing for the students and think it's a good thing to do for the community,” said Kristin Veysey, BSN, RN, a school nurse at Ludlow Elementary School and Mount Holly School. “The testing is quick and easy, and so is the consent process for parents.”
binx health is known for on-demand testing with proprietary, PCR-based, point-of-care platforms and consumer mobile offerings. Like CIC Health, it has experience tailoring implementation to meet different testing needs. Together, the companies are bringing a unique testing offering to Vermont camps and schools, with binx providing its FDA-authorized COVID-19 sample collection kits and a convenient and secure digital dashboard for test results delivery.
“With a joint mission around convenient access to care, binx, CIC Health, and the State of Vermont have helped put in place what we view as a powerful model for the nation to ensure our children’s safe return to in-person study and play,” said Jeff Luber, CEO of binx health.
CIC Health brings its testing logistics, implementation, and support expertise to lead this new partnership with the State of Vermont. Additionally, the samples collected via binx kits are processed by the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, a CIC Health collaborating lab.
"Through our simple, super-fast testing programs, we can maintain safe camp and school operations for kids across the country, even if not yet vaccinated,” said Tim Rowe, CEO and co-founder of CIC Health. “We are thrilled to expand our partnership with Vermont and excited to work with binx health to deliver testing that will help ensure our neighboring state maintains the ground it has gained as a national leader in the battle against COVID."
The new public-private partnership is effective immediately, with teams setting up testing for summer camps and preparing for the fall’s public school testing of unvaccinated students ages 8 and up.
About CIC Health
CIC Health offers comprehensive COVID-19 testing and vaccination services that are accessible, fast, and easy. The health tech company operates dozens of public testing sites, provides testing services — including pooled testing — to more than 600 schools and 375 organizations, and has run four mass vaccination sites: Gillette Stadium, Fenway Park, Reggie Lewis Center, and Hynes Convention Center. Headquartered in Cambridge, Mass., the company has facilitated 2 million PCR tests and over 1.2 million vaccine doses.
CIC Health collaborates with private and public entities like CLIA-certified labs, physician networks, health care institutions, and state and municipal governments to streamline and expedite operations to meet public health challenges. It is a 2021 Fast Company World Changing Ideas and 2020 Massachusetts Tech Top 50 honoree. CIC Health is registered as a public benefit corporation and is a subsidiary of Cambridge Innovation Center (CIC). Learn more at cic-health.com.
About binx health
binx health is a healthcare technology and diagnostics company that makes routine testing convenient by enabling access to care where people live, work, study and shop. The company works with large corporate partners and institutions who have access to large patient populations and have a significant interest in delivering or facilitating better healthcare to provide access to and enable more streamlined delivery of diagnostic testing and care. Its omnichannel platform includes the point-of-care io platform which puts central-lab quality testing solutions in the hands of clinicians everywhere and the Company’s suite of physician-mediated and medically guideline-driven, at-home sample collection offerings which bring high quality testing, population health tools and seamless digital integration capability to those unable or unwilling to visit a clinic location.
binx’s FDA-cleared, CLIA-waived io platform is the first ever point-of-care tool for the detection of chlamydia and gonorrhea that provides central lab performance results in about thirty minutes. Its platform is highly flexible, easy-to-use, and rapid, offering molecular point-of-care answers at central-lab quality performance and for the first time enabling single-visit test and treatment. The company is currently expanding its platform into COVID-19 testing by combining our proprietary electrochemical detection with CRISPR methods.
