COVID-19 diagnostic kits developed in IIT Guwahati now available commercially

Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, in association with RR Animal Healthcare Ltd., has successfully developed COVID-19 diagnostic kits. They are hopeful of delivering large quantities of affordable COVID-19 related diagnostic kits.

The breakthrough has made IIT Guwahati has become the first institute in the country to demonstrate an efficient model to develop import-substitute COVID-19 kits from lab-scale to prototype level. The commercialising of the kits will thereby save foreign exchange for the country. 

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'Kits have now been validated by GMCH'

These indigenously developed COVID-19 kits were launched by the Health Minister of Assam Dr. Himanta Biswa Sarma held on June 18. After the National Health Mission, Assam approached IIT Guwahati, with a request to develop Viral Transport Media (VTM) kits, RNA extraction kits, and RT-PCR kits and help the state government in their efforts to overcome this shortage. IIT Guwahati immediately took up this challenge and strategized to develop these kits in-house to meet the growing requirement of these kits during this time of COVID-19 pandemic. 

Speaking about the work on these kits, Prof TG Sitharam, Director of IIT Guwahati said, “IIT Guwahati is at the forefront in the fight against COVID-19 and the institute has remained fully committed to work with the state government during this difficult situation. The development of high-quality and affordable VTM and other COVID-19 related kits at the Institute was taken upon receiving a request from NHM, Assam and these kits have now been validated by GMCH as well as approved by ICMR”. 

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More than 2.5 Lakhs VTM kits developed

More than 2.5 Lakhs VTM kits developed at IIT Guwahati have already been supplied to NHM, Assam. Several testing laboratories across the country have also started procuring these import substitute kits due to their high quality, affordable price, and timely delivery schedules. 

These affordable and sterile “SPILD” Viral Transport Media (VTM) kits, RT-PCR kits, and RNA isolation kits have been developed at the Center for Nanotechnology, IIT Guwahati, jointly with RR Animal Healthcare Ltd. with inputs from GMCH by the research teams led by Prof Parameswar Krishnan Iyer, Prof Siddhartha Sankar Ghosh from IIT Guwahati and Dr Labanyamoy Kole and Dr Debashish Dutta of RR Animal Healthcare.

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