The Union health ministry in association with the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has started a joint initiative for promoting 'Indigenous diagnostic technologies for diagnosis of TB and MDR/XDR–TB'.
The objective of this joint move is to learn the status of the Indian indigenous technologies developed by the Indian researchers and discuss the way forward so that these can be made available/commercialised for larger use.
According to senior officials, the ICMR has taken the lead for promoting the indigenous diagnostic technologies for diagnosis of TB and MDR/XDR–TB developed by Indian scientists and companies. Under this joint initiative, an ‘Expert Group’ has been constituted under the chairmanship of Dr V.M.Katoch, secretary DHR & DG- ICMR for evaluating the potential TB diagnostic kits. So far, a total of six meetings have been held and two diagnostic tests have been shortlisted for validation. The aim of these meetings is to connect the companies to the government as public private partners between the government, academic institutions and industry.
The government's initiative in this regard is significant as there is a need for better kits for the detection of TB-MDR/XDR TB under the programme. There are various indigenous technologies developed by Indian scientists for detection of MDR/XDR TB and these technologies are in advanced stages of development and need support and partnerships from government and industry to enable commercialisation. It is important to identify the best technologies based on defined parameters and then pick them up for commercialisation without losing time.
Officials said that it is time to push best Indian technologies forward and government is committed to provide financial support for the validation of these technologies in a collaborative manner. The health ministry will extend full support to take these technologies forward if they are ready, cost effective and are found to be suitable for use in the programme as per the recommendations of the committee. The funds for external validation would be provided by DBT/ICMR/DHR and the external validation would be carried out in a multicentric manner.
The ICMR has asked the scientists, companies and the researchers working in this area to send the details of their diagnostic kits in given format to ICMR or DBT. The researchers and companies can work on developing cheap, point of care test, molecular technologies for use in programme in PHCs, CHC level, in district microscopy centers under RNTCP. The technology picking up maximum number of mutations and providing result in one day and are cost effective would be preferred.