COVID-19 has transformed the landscape for POC and Rapid Testing. Historically rapid tests were mostly used in ER (A&E) to enable physicians to make decisions about patients in life-or-death situations. But, the urgency of isolating infected patients and the chaos of overwhelmed hospitals has accelerated the development of a rapid COVID-19 antigenic test, which yields instant results and can be administered by a GP, nurse, pharmacist or patient.

This has opened the door to the possibility of instant diagnosis and decision making across other therapy areas, beyond emergency wards. Physicians have gained control of end-to-end patient care, removing the need to wait for a third party to collect sample, send it to a lab for testing and share the results. It can all be done then and there, at point-of-care, whilst the patient waits 15 minutes for the results.