NEW YORK, March 10, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- LivePerson, a global leader in conversational AI, in partnership with Innova Medical Group, the world's largest manufacturer of rapid antigen test kits and leader in COVID-19 testing solutions globally, today announced the launch of BELLA Health with Innova, a first-of-its-kind COVID-19 rapid testing experience with AI-guided instructions to ensure accuracy. This new experience is being evaluated in the first-ever, large-scale at-home rapid testing study in the United States, led by Dr. Michael Mina, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Innova's test, which has been authorized for use in the U.K. and the EU, is currently being used as a vital part of Operation Moonshot, the U.K. government's ambitious mass testing protocol to safely reopen schools and the economy. Innova is also conducting clinical evaluations in an effort to gain Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) in the United States.

While the clinical study with Citi focuses on evaluating use of the self-administered rapid antigen COVID-19 tests through the platform, BELLA Health plans to ultimately expand its platform to provide digital support for at-home testing for a variety of healthcare screenings from a selection of different diagnostic testing makers.

"Testing as Americans know it today simply isn't convenient, affordable, or even accessible. Through the power of conversational AI, BELLA Health aims to become the low-cost, effective solution our communities need to enable at-home testing," said Rob LoCascio, founder and CEO of LivePerson. "BELLA Health is designed to minimize human error and support users during home testing, and the study with Citi is intended to show it can be used effectively for COVID-19 testing at scale."

Innova's Rapid Antigen COVID-19 test used in this study provides results in 20 minutes or less. By combining the test with BELLA Health's AI-guided digital experience, the study with Citi is intended to show that users are able to:

• Interact with a virtual assistant to walk through the testing process step-by-step
• Reduce common self-testing errors to support proper testing procedures
• Increase confidence in test results and next steps
• Generate a health pass used to allow physical access to workplaces

LivePerson and Innova are uniquely suited to meet the strong consumer demand for at-home rapid COVID-19 testing. BELLA Health's compassionate conversational experience is fully built on LivePerson's leading Conversational AI technology, which is also helping simplify vaccine appointment scheduling for two U.S. states. Innova Medical Group currently produces 15 million highly accurate and cost-effective rapid antigen tests per day for global use. With FDA authorization, BELLA Health with Innova could be applied to the needs of any business, academic institution, or other organization in the U.S. The app will also enable users to connect with BELLA Health community experts for support, questions, or concerns.

"As we are learning through the study with Citi, by helping organizations test frequently and effectively, BELLA Health with Innova is poised to help them restore operations while taking steps to protect their members and employees," said Daniel Elliott, president and CEO of Innova Medical Group. "Combining the exponential reach of LivePerson's AI with Innova's ability to produce millions of tests at a fraction of the price of existing solutions could enable widespread rapid testing to become a part of American life."

Citi, the leading global bank, is participating in the study to evaluate BELLA Health with Innova's ability to provide at-home testing for their employees working onsite. To launch the testing program, Citi is inviting employees in their bank branches and trading floors to opt in to the study. Employees test themselves at home three times per week, submit answers to a health screening daily, and receive digital health passes to come into their work location based on their test results.

"The science is clear: we need widespread, frequent, rapid testing in order to complement the vaccines and protect us against the evolving COVID-19 variants," said Dr. Mina, the principal investigator of the study, which is being conducted through Dr. Mina's research laboratory and the Immune Observatory, Inc., a 501(c)(3) dedicated to improving detection and mitigation of epidemic and pandemic viruses across the globe. "Rapid antigen tests are uniquely positioned to detect contagious levels of virus and provide COVID-19 results in a time frame that allow us to safely reopen the economy while keeping community transmission low."

To stay up to date and be among the first to access BELLA Health, visit BELLA Health's website.

About BELLA Health
BELLA Health focuses on providing conversational health and wellness experiences 100% powered by human love. With a blend of automation and human support, BELLA Health provides members comfort by empowering people to take control of their wellness through empathetic and trustworthy interactions in potentially high-stakes health situations. Our first priority is helping people reunite, safely. www.bella.health

About LivePerson, Inc.
LivePerson makes life easier for people and brands everywhere through trusted conversational AI. Our 18,000 customers, including leading brands like HSBC, Orange, GM Financial, and The Home Depot, use our conversational solutions to orchestrate humans and AI, at scale, and create a convenient, deeply personal relationship — a conversational relationship — with their millions of consumers. LivePerson has also been named to Fast Company's World's Most Innovative Companies list for its leadership in Conversational AI. For more information about LivePerson (NASDAQ: LPSN), please visit www.liveperson.com.

About Innova Medical Group
Innova Medical Group, Inc. delivers better global health outcomes with its deep expertise in testing and unique offerings in diagnostic medical devices and services that help tackle some of the world's most challenging healthcare problems. Innova specializes in innovative screening, testing and diagnostics for cancer, heart disease, arterial calcification, stroke, and virus detection focused on infectious disease. In response to the global pandemic, Innova developed an end-to-end ecosystem of rapid diagnostic and screening tests, along with digital reporting and tracing applications to help organizations manage the COVID-19 crisis. www.innovamedgroup.com

Safe Harbor Statement

Statements in this press release regarding LivePerson that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual future events or results to differ materially from such statements. Any such forward-looking statements, including but not limited to financial guidance, are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. It should be clearly understood that the current information and beliefs upon which we base our expectations may change. Although these expectations may change, we are under no obligation to inform you if they do. Actual events or results may differ materially from those contained in the projections or forward-looking statements. Some of the factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements contained herein include, without limitation: major public health issues, and specifically the pandemic caused by the spread of COVID-19; delays in our implementation cycles; customer retention and their purchase of additional services, attracting new customers and new consumer users of our consumer services; concerns relating to the Internet that could result in new legislation or negative public perception; risks related to new regulatory or other legal requirements that could materially impact our business; risks relating to governmental export controls risks related to industry-specific regulation and unfavorable industry-specific laws, regulations or interpretive positions; future regulation of the Internet or mobile devices; failures or security breaches in our services, those of our third party providers, or customers; risks related to the regulation or possible misappropriation of personal information belonging to our customers' digital users; technology systems beyond our control and technology-related defects that could disrupt the LivePerson services, risks related to protecting our intellectual property rights or potential infringement of the intellectual property rights of third parties; risks associated with the use of AI in our product offerings; errors, failures or "bugs" in our products may be difficult to correct; our ability to license necessary third party products or software for use in our products and services, and our ability to successfully integrate third party software;legal liability and/or negative publicity for the services provided to consumers via our technology platforms. This list is intended to identify only certain of the principal factors that could cause actual results to differ from those discussed in the forward-looking statements.  Readers are referred to the reports and documents filed from time to time by us with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a discussion of these and other important factors that could cause actual results to differ from those discussed in forward-looking statements.

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SOURCE LivePerson, Inc.