A saliva-based coronavirus test that was funded by the NBA and National Basketball Players Association and developed at Yale University has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, according to ESPN.
The SalivaDirect test costs $4 to produce, though some expect companies to charge consumers three to four times more than that, according to experts that ESPN’s Zach Lowe spoke to.
Test results are expected to be able to be delivered on the same day.
The NBA and NBPA contributed more than $500,000 total.
Those two organizations and Yale said they do not intend to take royalties from the testing.
The current leading COVID-19 saliva test, developed by Rutgers, costs between $60-$150, Rutgers lab chief operating officer and associate professor Andrew Brooks told Lowe.
The newly approved test was used with a sample size that included NBA players and staff. Results, compared to nasal swabs the same people took, “almost universally matched,” Lowe wrote.
Several teams around sports use the test that was developed by Rutgers.
Yale associate professor of epidemiology Nathan Grubaugh, one of the senior authors of the saliva study, told Lowe that his “target population is everybody,” not just athletes.
“There were concerns about partnering with the NBA when all these other people need testing. But the simple answer ended up being the NBA was going to do all this testing anyway, so why not partner with them and try to create something for everyone?” he said.
