When I saw this announcement I tried to remember where I'd heard of this company before. At first I thought it was Respiri, which is one of the worst companies listed on the ASX. But then I recalled it was a company I posted about a couple of weeks ago after it released positive results of its COVID detecting phone app. In the post I was skeptical of the ability for COVID to be accurately detected from the sound of your cough and felt it was likely a promotional ploy to ramp the price ahead of a much needed capital raising. In fact I went as far as saying "I'll shout the Strawman bar if we don't see a capital raise on the back of this in the next couple of weeks." I'm still skeptical but it's ResApp's shareholders who are getting the last laugh as Pfizer has offered to buyout the company at a substantial premium to its current trading price (although a steep discount to where it has previously traded). Credit goes to management for getting this over the line and patient shareholders who have held on through thick and thin.

Bar is open...

"Pfizer has offered $100 million to buy a Brisbane-based company that has invented a smartphone app it says can diagnose COVID-19 by listening to someone cough.

ResApp CEO and managing director Tony Keating described the deal as a potential "game changer" for dealing with COVID-19.

"Pfizer represents a huge opportunity to get this test into people's hands," Dr Keating said.

Doctors are currently using a version of the app to help diagnose respiratory conditions such as asthma and pneumonia during telehealth appointments.

It was only recently that researchers discovered the technology could be used to detect COVID-19 if a patient coughed five times into a microphone.

Dr Keating said recent studies showed a 92 per cent success rate in diagnosing the virus, but more clinical trials were needed for it to gain regulatory approval.

The accuracy of the test drops if the person has no symptoms.

"If you are truly asymptomatic, we are a similar accuracy to a rapid antigen test, so we do drop down to 50-60 per cent accurate in that case," Dr Keating said.

The company said negative tests using ResApp were 99 per cent accurate, however a positive test should be confirmed using a RAT kit or PCR test."

You really have to have faith to trade small cap stocks. Unfortunately I did not hang in for the long haul.

Stay far far away guys - doctor here, this makes zero sense medically. If they are using the app to monitor asthma the diagnosis has already been established and then it is a matter of machine learning to manage a chronic condition. This base already has issues and will likely need years of work and tweaking machine learning to show any benefit.

You cannot extrapolate this to diagnosing Covid. Any patient with a cough can have Covid. They can also have any number of other things. As mentioned you can also have asymptomatic Covid or Covid with all the other symptoms except cough. Ignore or watch from a distance as it gets hyped up and then collapses.

ResApp announced positive results for a new app that could diagnose you with COVID from an app just by the sound of your cough. Apparently it uses "machine learning" to produce an "outstanding" level of results. The share price rose as much as 65% on the announcement. What can I say...color me skeptical.

This from a company that has racked up over $40m in accumulated losses and delivered revenue of $81k last half. A company that has been rolling out 'regulatory approval' and 'imminent commercialisation' announcements since at least 2015. Most crucially a company that saw $3.2m exit the building last half and had less than $3.4m of cash on the balance sheet as at 31 Dec 2021. I'll shout the Strawman bar if we don't see a capital raise on the back of this in the next couple of weeks.

I enjoyed this tweeted reply...

To be launched Q2 this year.

Cough sound-based audio processing patent now granted in China, Australia, Japan, Korea and the United States of America, and is pending in Europe.

Patent is owned by Uni of Qld and is exclusively licensed to ResApp for the lifetime of the patent.

Almost a million dollars richer!

Received research and development tax incentive claim for FY21.

"The refund strengthens the company’s cash position, which was $4.4 million as of 30 September 2021."

Brisbane, Australia, 8 December 2021 – ResApp Health Limited (ASX:RAP), a leading digital health company developing smartphone applications for the diagnosis and management of respiratory disease, today announced the establishment of a COVID-19 Scientific Advisory Board (SAB). The COVID-19 SAB will provide scientific and clinical advice to ResApp’s COVID-19 programs which are focused on delivering COVID-19 screening and disease management tools.

Pre-Submission package lodged with the US FDA

Brisbane, Australia, 10 February 2021 – ResApp Health Limited (ASX:RAP), a leading digital health company developing smartphone applications for the diagnosis and management of respiratory disease, is pleased to advise that it has filed a Pre-Submission package with the United States (US) Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and requested a meeting with the agency to progress the potential clearance of a prescription-only software as a medical device application to detect lower respiratory tract illness in children and adults.