25 January 2021 - - US-based consumer products company Procter and Gamble (NYSE: PG) is licensing its novel nasal swab to Rhinostics to launch and bring to the clinical laboratory market, the company said.

P and G developed the swab as part of its commitment to help communities address supply shortages and to bring creative solutions to bear on the challenges facing laboratories and supply chains during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The project was a collaboration between resources from P and G's Personal Health Care business and iMFLUX, a subsidiary focused on mold design and process technology innovation for the plastics injection molding market.

Swabs continue to be in short supply and are critical to fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. The companies believe the nasal swab's unique features make it a better material choice for both PCR and antigen-based assays.

These swabs reduce handling and lab processing cycle time and increase lab capacity as new home collection kits expand rapidly into the virus detection market.

Rhinostics plans on registering the P and G polypropylene nasal swab as a Class I Exempt medical device and will pursue Emergency Use Authorization for home collection with rPT-PCR testing, the gold standard for detection of SARS-CoV-2 infection.

This licensing agreement has the potential to provide relief to the constrained market, expedite test results and be a solution for future testing needs, like influenza.

P and G serves consumers around the world with one of the strongest portfolios of trusted, quality, leadership brands, including Always, Ambi Pur, Ariel, Bounty, Charmin, Crest, Dawn, Downy, Fairy, Febreze, Gain, Gillette, Head and Shoulders, Lenor, Olay, Oral-B, Pampers, Pantene, SK-II, Tide, Vicks, and Whisper. The P and G community includes operations in approximately 70 countries worldwide.

iMFLUX is a team of innovators, operating globally to transform the future of plastic injection molding. Join us on our journey to autonomous molding and learn how we provide meaningful sustainability solutions.

Rhinostics Inc. commercializes simple and elegant solutions to bring efficiencies and cost savings to the laboratory workflow.

The RHINOstic nasal swab provides features that increase sample throughput by more than 10-fold while removing labor and errors from the laboratory workflow.

The swab is integrated onto a cap that can be automated for removal from the tube while all 96 samples are simultaneously accessioned through scanning a 2D barcode on the bottom of the tubes.

The product provides an immediate impact to increasing COVID testing efficiencies while being applicable to broader respiratory viral, bacterial, and genetic testing using the polymerase chain reaction and next generation sequencing.

The RHINOstic product is registered as Class I exempt medical device with the FDA and is available for purchase.