Medical technology company Becton, Dickinson (BD) has acquired Scanwell Health, a provider of smartphone-enabled at-home medical tests. The move aims to expand BD’s development and presence in remote and at-home based medical technology.

BD collaborated with Scanwell to develop the app used with the recently launched BD Veritor At-Home COVID-19 Test, an at-home COVID-19 test that uses a smartphone camera and app to capture and interpret results, eliminating human subjectivity in determining results of at-home antigen tests.

BD plans to make Scanwell its foundational digital platform upon which it plans to develop at-home diagnostic tests for a range of infectious diseases including COVID-19/influenza A+B, group A strep and additional menu for detecting infections and managing chronic disease.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the shift to new care settings, and BD is ready to deliver a smart, connected at-home diagnostic ecosystem to support traditional and telehealth providers and consumers,” said Dave Hickey, president of Life Sciences for BD. “This acquisition will enable us to expand and scale our digital capabilities in-house to speed time to market for transformative at-home solutions now and in the future.”

BD describes the Scanwell app as a key differentiator in the market for at-home COVID-19 testing. The company claims that to date no other company uses the phone’s camera to capture the image of the test that is then analysed and interpreted by the app. According to BD, other COVID-19 home tests use smartphones as part of their process, but BD Veritor At-Home COVID-19 Test is the only test to use the smartphone as the analyser to digitally interpret the test results and provide a definitive POSITIVE or NEGATIVE digital display of testing results.

The app can store and report test results to organisations, including businesses, public health authorities and schools. The results of tests are stored in the app and can be referenced and displayed at any time by simply logging into the app.