URBANA, Ill. (WAND) - The University of Illinois System’s Shield T3 LLC will wind down operations by the end of December, system President Tim Killeen announced Monday.
Shield T3 is a for-profit entity founded in 2020 by the University of Illinois System and its Discovery Partners Institute to provide the SHIELD saliva-based testing for COVID-19 detection outside of the state of Illinois.
SHIELD tests were developed by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign during the early months of the pandemic and were widely deployed at U of I System universities and, through a separate entity known as SHIELD Illinois.
With the end of the pandemic earlier this year and decline in the volume of COVID-19 tests being processed, its business is now ending, Killeen said.
“Shield T3 provided lifesaving testing during the most challenging periods of the COVID-19 pandemic, taking our revolutionary and reliable SHIELD test and making it available to many millions of people across the country and around the world,” Killeen said. “When Illinois and the world needed us most, the U of I System answered with SHIELD and Shield T3. I am incredibly proud of all of those who worked to make this happen.”
Bill Jackson, DPI’s executive director, said, “SHIELD and Shield T3 are products of the innovative power that drives the U of I System."
Shield T3 also ended up providing wastewater testing to track COVID-19, RSV and influenza, and more recently deployed kiosks to dispense health care products such as over-the-counter medicines, primarily on university campuses.
The wind-down of Shield T3 will require a vote of the University of Illinois Board of Trustees, anticipated at the board’s next regular meeting in November.
At its peak, Shield T3 employed 172 full-time staff members and contractors.
It processed more than 5 million tests.
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