Pandemic Response Lab and Brio Announce Partnership to Provide Innovative Molecular Diagnostics Testing Solutions for the Entertainment Industry

Partnership Will Deliver Fast, Cost Effective, End-to-End Testing Solutions to Help Ensure Cast and Crew Safety While Reducing Production Downtime

NEW YORK & BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Pandemic Response Lab (PRL) and Brio today announced they are partnering to provide COVID-19 testing and variant “zone” surveillance tracking to mitigate the risk of new and emerging variants for the entertainment industry. The partnership will deliver fast, low-cost, end-to-end testing solutions to help ensure the safety of cast and crew members while reducing costs and production downtime.

Under the partnership, Brio’s platform will act as the operating system for COVID testing – providing sample collection services, logistics, reporting, advanced software, and expert support for entertainment facilities. PRL, operated by Opentrons Labworks, Inc., will conduct the back-end lab work (laboratory diagnostics), including gold-standard PCR testing and genome sequencing of all positive results to track variants.

“We are thrilled to be partnering with Brio to offer COVID testing and variant tracking services for the entertainment industry,” said Jonathan Brennan-Badal, CEO of Opentrons Labworks Inc. “Our partnership will provide movie and TV studios as well as other entertainment production centers with the diagnostic solutions they need to maintain a healthy and safe environment for all performers and support crew.”

"PRL NYC's vertically integrated approach to lab testing is akin to what has made SpaceX so disruptive to the aerospace industry – that makes this already productive partnership even more exciting for us." - Boris Lipchin, CEO and Co-Founder of Brio

While entertainment industry unions have created a return-to-work agreement and protocols intended to keep everyone safe, the emergence of potentially dangerous variants continues to pose a threat to the film, theater and music industries. The entertainment industry is particularly vulnerable to COVID outbreaks due to the necessarily transient nature of its workforce and required domestic and international travel of cast and crew. Select SARS-CoV-2 variants have increased transmissibility and severity resulting in increased hospitalizations or deaths, and reduced efficacy of medical treatments, including vaccines.

ABOUT PANDEMIC RESPONSE LAB AND OPENTRONS

• Using Opentrons’s advanced robotics and synthetic biology technology, PRL provides fast and accurate COVID-19 testing at a low cost to government agencies, hospitals, schools and businesses. PRL also conducts large-scale virus genome sequencing to track COVID-19 variants and identify potentially dangerous new mutations.

• PRL’s diagnostics testing is:
  • Purpose-built for the entertainment industry
  • The most cost-effective, reliable and fastest solution for RT-PCR-based COVID testing and zone level variant tracking
  • Fast: 99% of PCR results are provided in 6 hours or less, compared to the 48- to 72- hour industry average.
  • Affordable: PRL offers the highest quality RT-PCR testing at ½ to ⅓ the cost of alternative solutions
  • Proven & Reliable: PRL has already processed more than 4 million tests for the people of the United States since October 2020.

• In March, Opentrons opened its second PRL in Washington, D.C. along with a new Irvine, CA PRL location in June. Opentrons is exploring opening labs in other communities around the country.

• Opentrons specializes in manufacturing innovative robotics automation solutions for health care. Its products are used in more than 4,000 labs in more than 40 countries.

To learn more about PRL, visit PandemicResponseLab.com.

To learn more about Opentrons, visit Opentrons.com.

ABOUT BRIO

Brio Systems is a secure platform that offers a simple, end-to-end solution for diagnostic testing. In 2020, COVID-19 testing was fully integrated into the Brio network and technology to meet the unfamiliar and universal need within organizations. The company has serviced customers like USPS, Big Lots, and more. In the time since the onset of the pandemic, Brio streamlined a state-of-the-art logistics process and courier service, standardized workflows with their US-based laboratory partners, and created a scalable lab and test-agnostic infrastructure that is ready to serve the diagnostic needs of the future.

To learn more about Brio, visit GetBrio.com.