ONCO Life Sciences, the Pune based pharmacutical consulting and marketing company, has entered into an MoU with the Amsterdam based BioDetection Systems BV (BDS) to introduce a cell based diagnostics for dioxins (polychlorinated dibenzodioxins), endocrine disrupters and sports doping in India.

As per the agreement with the Amsterdam based BioDetection Systems BV (BDS) to bring in DR CALUX technology is an effort to promote environmental biotechnology. The product will be one among the cheapest available methods to test water, soil, dioxin, food and sports doping in the country. The company is currently, seeking support from the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and Department of Biotechnology (DBT) to set up a well-facilitated R&D in India, according to Ashish Agarwal, founder and CEO, ONCO Life Sciences Pvt Ltd.

"The technology is mainly used for dioxin and progesterone contamination cell based testing and could be effectively used in various other activities in pharmaceutical industry including water testing and environmental quality monitoring," he maintained. DR CALUX technology, which is on the market for about past six years, is also considered as easier kit based bioassays technology, which can be produced in-house.

More than 30 laboratories in more than 20 countries are currently the users of DR-CALUX technology. The leading countries in Asia include Japan and Taiwan with four licensees, China with two licensees and Korea with one licensee. India will join this group if the government approves the license applied by the company for marketing the technology in the country, added Ashish.

One of the major advantages of the product is that the customer can produce the kit-based bioassays for their own instead of buying new kits from the supplier for each time. The aim of the technology is always to supply an easy and much cheaper analysis method as the usual chemical analysis with the possibilities of faster turn-around-times.

Licensing on the technology is possible for 'in-house' requests for analysis from the government, or for full commercial application involving analysis requests from third parties. The technology is expected to help the Indian companies to keep their technology infrastructure as safe, he averred.

BDS is a Dutch company providing bioassays for a wide range of compounds and mixtures of compounds from natural and man-made origin, such as dioxin and dioxin-like compounds such as PCBs (DR CALUX), estrogens/pseudo estrogens (ER CALUX), androgen hormones (AR CALUX) and other persistent organic pollutants (POPs).