Five Questions With: Tim Rowe

Tim Rowe is CEO of CIC Health, a Cambridge, Mass.-based company launched this summer in response to the need for COVID-19 testing facilitation. In November, CIC Health opened a public testing site in Providence, its first in Rhode Island.

Rowe discusses the motivation behind creating CIC Health, its expansion into the Ocean State and the company’s post-pandemic future. 

PBN: Please briefly explain what CIC Health is, and when and why it was founded.

ROWE: CIC Health launched COVID-19 testing services in August of this year to help solve one of the greatest public health challenges of the pandemic: making routine testing accessible, fast and easy. We are a subsidiary of the Cambridge Innovation Center, or CIC, which is a global provider of shared workspace and life science laboratory spaces for scientists and entrepreneurs. In Providence, we are located at 225 Dyer St.

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CIC Health’s innovative approach first allowed for routine testing of CIC’s tenants. Since then, our organization has become a leading provider of COVID-19 testing logistics to organizations, including K-12 schools, universities and health care facilities, and individuals across New England. We now serve more than 200 organizations and thousands of individuals, and we are rapidly expanding to coordinate public testing in other U.S. markets.

We facilitate the gold-standard COVID-19 PCR test, self-administered with a simple shallow nasal swab in about five minutes, with no wait times or lines. CIC Health collaborates with renowned CLIA-certified [Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments of 1988] laboratories to process the tests, including the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and test results are delivered in 24 hours on average.

In late October, we launched our first public testing site in Cambridge, Mass., and in the two months since, we have opened more than 20 public testing sites around New England, including 225 Dyer St. in Providence. We will launch many more in the coming weeks.

PBN: Since CIC Health’s COVID-19 testing site opened on Dyer Street in Providence in late November, how many tests have been administered there? Also, where can information on scheduling a test be found? 

ROWE: Overall, CIC Health has facilitated over half a million COVID tests. In our new site in Providence, we have facilitated more than 1,500 tests so far. We continue to see a steady climb in the number of daily testing appointments at Dyer Street and we’re working to increase testing capacity even further for Rhode Island residents. Individuals can visit www.cic-health.com/individuals to get more information and register for a test.

PBN: How many testing sites are you hoping to open in Rhode Island, and what is the timeline? 

ROWE: Our testing location at 225 Dyer St. is the first CIC Health testing location in the state and we plan to continue to expand throughout Rhode Island to support the significant need for increased testing capacity.

As Rhode Island battles the resurgence of COVID-19 and the state’s hospitals become overburdened, individual testing is a critical step in controlling the spread of the virus, coupled with mask wearing and social distancing measures. We hope to expand to additional locations in the first quarter of 2021.

PBN: What is unique about your approach to COVID-19 testing? 

ROWE: There is continued concern around the lack of testing throughout the United States, and in many places, routine testing still isn’t possible. Even when people are able to access testing, they often have to wait hours in line, and results can take several days. By that point, if a person receives a positive test result, it may be too late to self-isolate to prevent infecting others.

What we quickly learned when we entered the testing landscape is that there is not a lack of tests or lab capacity in the country. Rather, there is a lack of the “connective tissue” between those who want to get tested and the labs able to process those tests. CIC Health serves as this critical connector. We collaborate with CLIA-certified labs like the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and seamlessly integrate the rest of the logistical infrastructure, including regulatory standards like online ordering, scheduling and payment, physician oversight and results delivery. We are able to offer all of this under one umbrella service, leading to increased routine testing that is easy and fast for more than 200 organizations and thousands of individuals.

PBN: Will CIC Health re-focus once a COVID-19 vaccine is approved in the U.S. and the pandemic comes to an end?

ROWE: Yes. We are working with multiple state governments on developing mass-vaccination programs. CIC Health is advised by dedicated public health experts who are constantly looking ahead toward the next phase of the pandemic response to ensure we are doing everything we can to continue supporting public health and safety.

Elizabeth Graham is a PBN contributing writer.