Indian, Korean companies to produce, import COVID-19 testing kits; Dependency on China to go down
NEW DELHI: As the COVID-19 positive cases continue to surge, though slowly, India has ramped up its domestic production of Coronavirus testing kits to reduce its dependence on imports especially from China.
India that has imported about 9.5 lakhs testing kits from China in two consignments, has not only awarded permissions to domestic pharmaceutical companies to produce testing kits locally or import, it also has roped in two major South Korean firms – Seegene and SD Biosensor Healthcare for the purpose.
India’s top medical body, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), has accorded approvals for two types of testing kits – real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test and rapid antibody test, which is essentially a blood test for detecting COVID-19 antibodies.
RT-PCR testing kit that requires nasal and throat swabs take six to ten hours for results to be processed. The rapid antibody test, which is essentially a blood test for detecting COVID-19 antibodies, can deliver results in 30 minutes.
In his Twitter message on April 18, Vikram Misri, the Indian ambassador in China said, “Nearly 3 Lakh Rapid Antibody Tests have just been airlifted by @airindiain from #Guangzhou | Supplies are headed to Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu. Great work on the ground by our team at @cgiguangzhou.”
Earlier on April 16, Misri had confirmed through his Twitter handle, “A total of 650,000 kits, including Rapid Antibody Tests and RNA Extraction Kits, have been dispatched early today from Guangzhou Airport to #India.”
ICMR has also granted approval to China’s Zhuhai Livzon Diagnostics Inc for exporting rapid test kits to India.
However, recently the ICMR permitted over a dozen Indian pharmaceutical companies to start producing locally or sourcing testing kits from overseas.
These include Vanguard Diagnostics, Helini Biomolecules, Nulife Care, Medsource Ozone Biomedicals, MyLab, Alpine Biomedicals, Immunoscience, Voxtur Bio and 3B BlackBio Biotech, CPC Diagnostics, and government-run HLL Lifecare.
One Malaysia-based ADT Biotech also has got the green signal from ICMR for supplying Coronavirus testing kits.
South Korea’s Seegene that was the first company to receive Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) approval to start supplying testing kits to the government in Korea is likely to export over a million testing kits to India.
Seegene had actually help South Korea contain the spread of COVID-19 outbreak as the country embarked upon the massive testing drive with the help of testing kits provided by it. The company is now supplying its kits to over 40 countries worldwide. It has a potential production capacity of 3 million kits a week.
South Korea’s SD Biosensor Healthcare has received approval from ICMR to produce 500,000 testing kits at its Manesar (Gurugram) based production facility. It’s a start-up company founded in 2012 to produce blood glucose meters with five employees and now has grown its employee base to around 400 and produces multiple products.
Though Gurugram where SD Biosensor Healthcare is located falls in the Red Zone category, and industrial units are not allowed to operate, the company has started its production in accordance with the special approvals by the Ministry of Home Affairs.
