BOULDER — Mbio Diagnostics Inc. received an additional $1.55 million from the U.S. Department of Defense this week to get a rapid infection testing device closer toward federal approval.

The Boulder-based company is developing a system to find specific biomarkers in a blood sample that would indicate the presence of a range of contagious diseases early in their incubation cycles.
In an emailed statement, chief operating officer Michael Lochhead said the system could be used for testing for COVID-19, but it would test for the presence of a C-reactive protein caused by inflammation instead of current tests, which check for COVID-19’s RNA with a sample.

MBio plans to file data to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration by March 2021.

The Defense Department previously gave MBio $1.21 million for the project in February, according to federal contracting records. The company has received just more than $3.55 million in federal funding since 2012.