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The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) is ready with an indigenous low-cost, battery-operated, portable diagnostic device to detect tuberculosis. The device is expected to give out test results in about two hours.
“Multi-centre validation of the chip-based device is under way in four centres, including Chennai, Agra and Delhi,” Soumya Swaminathan, Secretary in the Ministry of Health, said here on Tuesday.
The device, made by Bangalore-based Bigtech, has been developed jointly by ICMR, along with the Department of Biotechnology and the Health Ministry, Swaminathan told reporters on the sidelines of a symposium on ‘Innovate or Copy Paste’, organised by the Embassy of Switzerland. Swaminathan said India is ready with nine more innovative technologies, but the biggest roadblock to commercialisation is funding, especially by the private pharma industry, as “profit margins are not too high.”
Another hurdle is the lack of a “well-defined regulatory pathway” for diagnostics, she added.
ICMR has filed patent applications for nine new indigenous technologies that are ready for release and is now scouting for industry partners.
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