The Hindu Business Line : PerkinElmer, ICMR join hands to check genetic disorders

The screening is voluntary, but the study looks to cover one lakh babies. By screening children in the pre-natal and post-natal stages, several genetic diseases can be caught.

P.T. Jyothi Datta

Mumbai, Sept. 17 In India, 1.2 million new born babies die of genetic disorders. The fact highlights the need to screen the mother and baby for genetic disorders, says Mr Jai Shankar, President, PerkinElmer India, a technology provider for different segments including genetic screening. PerkinElmer has tied-up with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) to genetically screen newborns at five centres in India. The centres include Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Mumbai’s King Edward Memorial Hospital, Hyderabad’s Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics, Kolkata’s Seth Sukhlal Karnani Memorial Hospital and Chennai’s Foetal Medicine Centre.

There is published data that one baby in every three-and-a-half minutes is born with genetic disorders in the country, according to Mr Shankar. There are 25 million births per year in the country and 20 per cent of the babies being born globally are in India.

The screening is voluntary, but the study looks to cover one lakh babies. By screening children in the pre-natal and post-natal stages, several genetic diseases can be caught and this can save the child and its family of additional costs one would have to bear if the child has a genetic disorder, he explained. One in every 700 children has Down’s Syndrome in the US, but no such data is available in India, he said.

The project hopes to capture trends of genetic disorders, based on which it could be decided on whether genetic screening was to be made mandatory in the country, he said.

Genetic screening is at present undertaken in the US, Europe and some countries in Asia, he said. While the US screens for about 30 genetic disorders, countries like Singapore or the Philippines also have mandatory genetic-screening, but for illnesses specific to their region, he said.

Genetic screening involves testing the blood of the mother-to-be or taking a swab from the baby’s foot to check for illness including Down’s Syndrome, congenital hypothyroidism, thalessemia, low blood-count etc, he said. The tests would cost about Rs 200 per test, and can go upto Rs 5,000 for the list of 30 tests, he said.

PerkinElmer also provides equipment for traceability-related testing in segments including food, water, environment and pharmaceuticals. Asia accounts for 20 per cent of the US-based company’s global turnover of $ 1.7 billion, he said, without giving details of the Indian wholly-owned subsidiary.

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