Pfizer coughs up for ASX-listed Covid-19 diagnostics company

ResApp’s software would allow patients to check if they have the coronavirus through sound. Pfizer will pay millions more if the next clinical trial, due next week, is successful.

ResApp chief executive Tony Keating says home testing is here to stay.

ResApp, which is developing a smartphone app that would diagnose Covid-19 by listening to the sound of a cough, has recommended shareholders agree to sell the company to Pfizer after the pharmaceutical giant lifted its offer by at least $27m.

Should a study into the Covid-19 app prove a success, shareholders would be paid another $53m, the company told the ASX on Tuesday.

Pfizer made its initial takeover offer, at 11.5c per share, in April, after which ResApp commissioned BDO to prepare an independent report about whether the sale would be in the best interest of shareholders. That report determined the value of ResApp shares was actually between 14.6c and 27.7c – to where Pfizer has now lifted its bid.

A clinical validation study is being undertaken to confirm whether the Covid-19 cough-based detection tool will perform in the same way as a pilot study did in March.

The result of that study – with over 1250 patients – is due by June 20.

“We’ve been recruiting additional patients in that study, and this test we are running this week will see us getting confirmation that those results are as exciting as they were in March,” said ResApp chief executive Tony Keating.

”We’ll need additional studies and FDA approval. It’s hard to put a definitive timeline on that, and working with Pfizer and the resources it has means that will be as fast as possible.

“Covid-19 is here to stay … we’ve seen multiple variants and the pandemic has shifted healthcare to at-home testing. We never used to have rapid flu tests, now we have rapid Covid tests in our cupboard and ResApp is a great opportunity for people to self-test at home.”

In March, the company said a pilot clinical trial of 741 patients in the US and India found the Covid-19 app detected infections in 92 per cent of those with the virus.

This sensitivity exceeded the real-world measured sensitivity of rapid antigen tests, and eight of 10 people without Covid-19 were correctly screened as negative, ResApp said at the time.

Catherine Bennett, a Deakin University epidemiologist who is a nmember of the company’s Covid-19 scientific advisory board, said the app “would significantly reduce the number of rapid antigen and PCR tests required, while still maintaining the disease surveillance needed to manage the continued impact of Covid-19”.

ResApp, which came out of the University of Queensland, already has smartphone apps which can diagnose respiratory diseases approved by the Therapeutic Goods Administration. It can be used to diagnose pneumonia, asthma exacerbation and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.