Local entrepreneur gets his COVID smell tester product approved by Health Canada
Michael Bryant’s success has always been about adaptability. It’s seen in his agri-tourism destination known as Dromoland Farms. It’s obvious with his purchase of the town trolley car to meet local tourism needs. Now, Bryant has turned his attention to developing an easy-to-use COVID-19 test — and yesterday he got authorization from Health Canada to sell it. The product is called Anosmic COVID-19 Smell Tester. It’s the first (and only, according to Bryant) authorized product that can screen people in their own homes to control the spread of the novel coronavirus.
Bryant’s company website shows how easy the made-in-Canada product is to use. Simply spray a little on a tissue or your wrist, then sniff from two inches away. If you can detect a distinct odour, that’s normal. But if you do the test daily and find it’s getting harder to smell from one day to the next, then you may have COVID and it will be important to isolate and get a confirmation test.
Losing one’s sense of smell is one of the first indications of COVID-19.
“Helping people and business survive – that’s the part that I think is so rewarding,” Bryant told the Advocate.
He sees this being used by families, front-line health care workers, restaurants, other businesses, schools, and churches.
“It’s a 30-second test — the perfect screening test,” he says, since it hardly takes any time.
Bryant has two plants ready to produce the COVID smell tester, one in Ontario and the other in Maryland. He says the company is close on FDA approval in the U.S.
Bryant notes that his product can be used safely each day. “It’s low-cost, easy to use, natural, and non-invasive.”
It’s also 90 per cent accurate, according to the entrepreneur.
Bryant “sort of” retired about seven years ago but he ended up travelling the world and developed expertise in creating technology in chemicals and agri-chemicals, as well as learning about new paving technologies.
In 2003 in Hong Kong, Bryant found himself there during the SARS crisis and dreamed of a product to test oneself for upper respiratory illnesses.
“I’ve been working on this for other illnesses, too, for about six to seven years,” he says, including for MS, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s early detection, among other diseases.
“We refined the formula in February for COVID-19,” and now Bryant is hoping his team can tackle other illnesses for early detection, too.
