Tata Medical Develops fast-testing solution for COVID-19

Tata Medical & Diagnostics on Wednesday said it has indigenously developed a fast-testing solution for COVID-19 to significantly boost India's testing capacity amid the Omicron variant threat.

The solution, Tata MD CHECK Express RT-PCR, can be applied in multiple areas where quick, high volume, and reliable testing is required, such as airports and events, the company claimed.

With studies in India pointing to a possible surge in cases in February next year, there is expected to be a multifold increase in demand for RT-PCR COVID tests that are economical and give fast results, it added.

To meet this challenge, Tata Medical & Diagnostics (Tata MD) has indigenously developed the COVID testing solutions that will significantly boost India's COVID testing capacity, the company said.

Its solutions include 'Tata MD CHECK XF', a kit that has a processing time of one hour and can process 30 samples per batch per machine. It is approved by ICMR with over 95 per cent sensitivity and 100 per cent specificity.

The other one is the 'Tata MD CHECK RT-PCR Fast 3Gene' kit that uses a fast amplification protocol, with a processing time of 90 minutes and can process 90 samples per batch per machine. It is approved by ICMR with 100 per cent sensitivity and 100 per cent specificity, the company said.

Tata Medical & Diagnostics CEO Girish Krishnamurthy said the company was striving to indigenously develop innovative medical technologies and working on several new technologies for COVID-19 testing.

"These express testing solutions can be applied in multiple areas where quick, high volume, and reliable testing is required such as airports and events," he added.

The company said its new Tata MD CHECK Express PCR testing solution has been in use at the Kempegowda International Airport, Bengaluru, since early this month and has proven to deliver rapid and dependable results in a real-world environment with a high volume of tests.

"It has proved instrumental in helping to address the rush of fliers from 'high risk' countries required to undergo mandatory RT-PCR testing," the company said.

Last year in November, the company had launched its COVID testing kit, 'TataMD CHECK', developed in partnership with CSIR-IGIB (Council of Scientific and Industrial Research-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology). It has been approved by the Indian Council of Medical Research and Drug Controller General of India (DCGI).