COVID-19 test kit made in India to show result of RT-PCR within 1 hour 30 minutes

Sept. 27: Equine Biotech, a startup incubated at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), has developed an indigenous RT-PCR diagnostic kit called “Global diagnostic kit” for “accurate and affordable” diagnosis of Covid-19. The test kit has been approved for use in authorised COVID-19 diagnostic labs by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). This new test kit takes  1 hour 30 minutes time to confirm th presence of SARS-COV-2 (novel coronavirus/ COVID-19) in patient samples.

Utpal Tatu, Professor in the Department of Biochemistry, IISc, and founder of Equine Biotech said, “The kit is an easy-to-use, multiplex RT-PCR kit with 100 per cent specificity, and its run time is relatively short when compared with the kits available in the industry.”

India needs home-grown diagnostics kits that can easily be mass produced and made accessible to a larger population. But so far, only a few Indian companies have developed reliable and accurate RT-PCR kits; most of the kits used widely are imported, and therefore expensive. It is in this backdrop that Equine Biotech is currently seeking to licence its new COVID-19 test kit and work with med-tech companies and other industries for mass production, marketing, and distribution of these new made-in-India kits.