Diagnostic major Bhat Bio-Tech India (P) Ltd. has developed a completely indigenous diagnostic test kit, Bhat Bioscan Dengue, which detects the NS1 antigen, IgM and IgG antibodies simultaneously. Dengue is caused by Aedes aegypt mosquito.

Currently, there are three companies J Mitra, Standard Diagnostics and Bhat Bhat which have kits to test dengue. While Standard Diagnostics imports the kits, only Bhat Bio-Tech and J Mitra are the two indigenous manufacturers in India of the same.

The growing rise of the deadly mosquito-borne dengue viral infection which is now a serious health issue needs faster diagnosis. “This is where our dengue combo kit, which will diagnose both antigen and antibodies will now provide a quicker access to treatment once detected. The test kit is detecting all known four sero types of dengue virus and can be performed with whole blood, serum and plasma too, Dr Shama Bhat, chairman and managing director, Bhat Bio-Tech India told Pharmabiz.

“The test kit underwent two years of extensive research. It is provided in a convenient pack size of 10 tests with 18 months of expiry with storage between four-30 degrees temperature priced at Rs.160 per pack. We have set our sights across India and global markets going by the increasing incidence,” he added.

WHO estimates indicate that over 2.5 billion people which accounts to over 40 per cent of the world's population leading to 50–100 million dengue infections worldwide every year. India too, the metros have a rampant rise of Dengue cases reported from New Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai and Bengaluru.

The company’s GMP compliant facility at the Veerasandra Industrial Area in Bengaluru which has a full fledged scientific team developed the A rapid, qualitative, one-step immunoassay based on the immunochromatographic principle for the detection of IgM and IgG antibodies to all known dengue viral serotypes DEN-1,2,3 & 4 in human serum, plasma or whole blood.

Dengue IgM/IgG test is a Immunochromatographic method for the qualitative and differential detection of IgM and IgG antibodies to Den-1, 2, 3 and 4 serotypes, said Dr Bhat, a former scientist from University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia who founded the biotech start-up to develop indigenous diagnostic solutions in molecular biology by induction of polymerase chain reaction and nucleic acid testing to improve the diagnostics medicine standard to much higher levels in the Indian market.

Since the inception of the company in 1994 it is engaged in providing OEM solutions to the industrial needs with its plant standard of WHO-GMP, ISO-13485 and CE enabled manufacturing facilities. Its five floor facility has the R&D cell, seven production units with 10,000 Clean Rooms, large scale reagent manufacture facility and downstream processing equipments.

In the last two years, the company introduced the Bhat Glucoscan Glucometer which comes in with a five years warranty with a capacity of over 100 test memory and the battery lasting for 1000 tests.