John Sperzel: Sure, Ben. First of all, thanks for the question. The first thing I want to do is just three really important points about the T2Biothreat Panel, and just really emphasized these. The first is that the targets — the six targets that are on our panel are unique. The T2Biothreat Panel is the first and only FDA-cleared product able to simultaneously detect those six high-priority biothreat pathogens. There is another multi-target biothreat product that is manufactured by a French owned company. Three of the targets are similar to our panel, three of them are not, that product is entirely controlled by Department of Defense, ours is not. So we have unique targets. The second point I want to make is that we believe the performance of our product, the sensitivity and specificity is unparalleled.
The sensitivity was 100% on five targets and 94.3% on the other, and the specificity was 100% across all six targets. I’ve not seen that kind of performance in a multi-target molecular diagnostic test outside of BioThrax, certainly not within. And then the third, which I think is really important when we talk about procurement of this test or sales of this test to US government entities. This product is made by a US-owned company. It’s the only FDA-cleared multi-target biothreat product developed and manufactured by a US-owned company. And with the Buy America First mandate, we think that’s going to be important. So to your question about the target market opportunities, I mean just to reiterate them, the US lab response network is about 30 labs across the United States that routinely test for these kind of pathogens and others.
So that’s a clear opportunity. State and public health labs, that’s within the call point of our current commercial team. The stockpile and other government agencies like CDC, NIH, DoD, those are going to be more of a corporate account type sale that would be made by myself or others in the organization and international government is the same. They would have to be allies of course. And we’re actively engaged in those discussions.
Ben Haynor: Okay. And, I mean, is there any sort of timeline that is associated potentially with these things? I mean, is there RFP processes now that it’s FDA cleared or anything from any of these folks that or any of these entities that you can kind of hang your hat on or investors can hang their hat on and say, this is what — is the potential out there?
John Sperzel: Well, I think the good thing is they’re all a little bit different. The strategic stockpile, that’s obviously a process. It’s a government-led process. The LRN labs is probably a little less structured than that, but also it’s a government-led process. State and public health labs, those could happen anytime. And as well as international governments. I think there’s obviously a lot of emphasis on what’s going on around the world and the threat of bioterrorism is real.
Ben Haynor: Okay. That’s fair enough. And then on the investments in equipment, on the production side to kind of help deal with the back. Are those significant investments in equipment and do those expand your production capacity? Or what’s the right way to kind of wrap your head around those?
John Sperzel: I wouldn’t consider them consistent. We’re talking about a piece of equipment that might cost $10,000.
Ben Haynor: Okay. So not significant and don’t think about it as really expanding capacity or anything like that.
John Sperzel: That’s correct.
Ben Haynor: Okay. Great. I think the back-line question has kind of been asked and answered. So I guess I’ll leave it at that. Thanks a lot for taking the questions.
John Sperzel: Thank you, Ben. Appreciate it.
Operator: Thank you. There were no other questions at this time. I would now like to turn the call over to John Sperzel for closing remarks.
John Sperzel: Thank you all for participating in our preliminary Q3 results report and business update. We look forward to updating as we go forward. Thank you and have a great night.
Operator: Thank you. This does conclude today’s conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.
