NEW DELHI: IIT-Delhi's low-cost COVID-19 testing kit will be produced by a Bengaluru-based biotechnology firm and is expected to be available by the first week of June, according to officials.
The large scale assembly and manufacturing of the kits by Genei Laboratories will be carried out at a facility exclusively set up for COVID-19 testing kits at the Andhra Pradesh MedTech Zone (AMTZ) in Vizag.
"Genei Laboratories is one of the companies which has received the non exclusive license from IIT Delhi for the Probe free RT-PCR based COVID-19 low cost test kit," Indian Institute of Technology Delhi Director V Ramgopal Rao said.
IIT Delhi, which has become the first academic institute to develop a COVID-19 testing method, is planning to give non-exclusive open licence to companies for commercialising the test, but with a price rider. While the institute has kept a price rider of Rs 500 per kit, Genei Laboratories has not announced the price yet.
"Genei Laboratories expects to manufacture the most affordable real time PCR testing Kits for COVID-19 in India. The final kit will have two variants and is expected to be rolled out by June 1st week of 2020," Genei Laboratories MD S Chandrashekaran said.
The company is among the 40 companies to have reached out to the institute after it got an approval from ICMR for the test based on a real-time PCR-based diagnostic assay.
According to the team, the current testing methods available are "probe-based", while the one developed by IIT Delhi is a “probe-free” method, which reduces the testing cost without compromising on accuracy.
With agency inputs