A Hyderabad-based diagnostics kit manufacturing company, Huwel Lifesciences has developed a COVID-19 test kit that has received approval for commercial use from the Union Health Ministry and the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on Friday. The firm is one of the six, which got selected for manufacturing testing kits. The ICMR and National Institute of Virology (NIV) completed testing diagnostic kits of 24 companies on Friday.
Quantiplus CoV is the detection kit developed by the firm based on the published protocol of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) — the national public health agency of the USA. Speaking to Telangana Today, the Director of Huwel Lifesciences, Dr Shesheer Kumar said the firm will manufacture about 3000 to 4000 kits per day at its Narsingi and Kokapet facilities. The company claims to be the first in the country to have developed all reagents including enzymes required for the kit to work, in-house.
The testing kit includes a detection kit, extraction kit, molecular transport medium and swabs for sample collection. It has been designed exclusively to detect COVID-19 but also helps detect other diseases caused by the coronavirus family.
The firm with 25 employees began operations in 2018 by manufacturing molecular diagnostic kits for Dengue, TB and Chikungunya mostly catering to the southern states.
Other test kits that have been approved by ICMR include that of Altona Diagnostics (Germany), My Lab (Pune), Kilpest (Madhya Pradesh), two firms from South Korea, Seegene and SD Biosensor.
Until now, polymerase chain reaction (RT PCR) test kits for COVID-19 diagnosis were being sourced from the US and then distributed to private and government-run testing laboratories. ToI reported that 18 more firms will be approved in the coming week.
Meanwhile, in Andhra Pradesh, MedTech Zone (APMZ) in Visakhapatnam, a state-government enterprise began manufacturing COVID-19 test kits. They will also start making ventilators from April 15. AMTZ has started manufacturing 2000 test kits per day.
AMTZ received approval for manufacturing the rapid testing kits from ICMR and has been granted exemption from manufacturing approvals for ventilators by the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI), due to the pandemic. From April 15, the facility will also begin production of ventilators, with the Centre having placed an order for 3,500 of them. HLL Lifecare Ltd, a government enterprise, will assist in the assembly of ventilators.