After the failure of its first attempt to rope in private companies to commercialise its diagnostic, luciferase reporter phage assay kit, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has once again invited companies interested in commercializing its newly developed technology for the detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis directly from processed sputum samples.

Earlier in April this year, the premier research organisation had invited proposals from private companies interested in commercializing diagnostic luciferase reporter phage assay kit for the detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis directly from processed sputum samples. But, the ICMR's efforts in this regard did not bear fruit as it did not receive the desired response from the companies.

Senior officials in the ICMR said that there are several salient features to this technology developed by the ICMR. This assay can be used for detecting latent and active tuberculosis and the ICMR has filed a patent application for this technology.

Officials said that the technology is a very promising candidate for drug susceptibility testing and diagnosing Mycobacterium tuberculosis more rapidly as the assay allows detection of viable Mycobacterium tuberculosis in clinical samples.  It is used as an alternative to antibiotics to control the overgrowth of normal flora in processed sputum samples. The kit comprises of Phage lysin, Luciferase reporter phage (LRP), G7H9, 0.1M CaCl2, D-Luciferin and is useful as an effective tool for quick diagnosis of tuberculosis in a subject.

The new technology is a promising technique to diagnose actively growing tubercle bacilli present in sputum samples and the assay is more rapid and sensitive to diagnose tuberculosis as compared to existing methods and can be effectively used in detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in wide range of clinical samples. Besides, it is the only available growth based method to diagnose presence of latent cells of tubercle bacilli. Moreover, the assay is quick, very simple and economically viable.