Staff Reporter
Margao
Goa’s Molbio Diagnostics, developer of the Truenat RT-PCR platform has announced its collaboration with SigTuple, a medtech startup in the field of AI for diagnostics, to build an AI-enabled portable devices for routine and critical diagnostic tests.
The devices will enable testing to be performed at the point-of-care – a doctor’s chamber, a public health centre, or an emergency room of a hospital – without having to send samples to laboratories.
Currently, most diagnostic tests are conducted in clinical laboratories. Worldwide, there has been a push to decentralise diagnostics, and take testing closer to the patient with the aim to reduce the turn- around time for testing, reduce errors, and help in early diagnosis and initiation of correct treatment. The COVID-19 pandemic also fuelled an explosive growth in the development of point-of-care COVID testing devices. However, such point-of-care testing for other routine diagnostic tests is still lagging far behind.
With an aim to bridge this gap, and enable most basic tests to be performed at near-patient settings, Molbio and SigTuple have joined hands to collaborate on the development of AI-powered, battery-operated, portable devices for many diagnostic tests in the fields of hematology, biochemistry, electrochemistry and other areas.
The testing process will be extremely simplified, and will not require a trained laboratory technician to perform the tests. Accurate, laboratory-quality test results will be available to the patient within a few minutes.
The blood test market worldwide is today around $75-80 billion.
With decentralisation of basic testing, this market has the potential to increase by at least 2X, and the cost to the end patient to come down by at least half.
Molbio, with its vast experience in building robust portable point-of-care testing devices, large-scale manufacturing and sales and distribution expertise, and SigTuple, with its proficiency in artificial intelligence and microfluidics technologies, hope that the collaboration will help build on the strengths of the two organisations to drive cutting edge technology which can make high quality diagnostics accessible to everyone.
CEO, director and co-founder of Molbio Diagnostics Sriram Natarajan, while speaking about the collaboration, said, “Molbio started with the vision to democratise access to high-quality diagnostics through innovative tools. Truenat, our point-of-care molecular platform, is already playing this role in the area of infectious diseases. However, there is still a gap in other critical areas. We are delighted to join hands with SigTuple in our Universal Access Mission and accelerate the development of next-gen devices that will not only fill this gap but also provide instant reports through Artificial Intelligence to enable immediate intervention and create a positive impact on patient and societal
well being.”
Founder and CEO of SigTuple Tathagato Rai Dastidar said, “SigTuple started in 2015 with a singular goal – to make quality healthcare more accessible, more accurate and more affordable, with the help of AI, robotics and microfluidics. While our other products are meant for the clinical laboratories, with this new product, we will be able to push the boundaries of diagnostics much nearer to the end patient. We are truly honoured and excited to partner with Molbio, a proven leader in portable diagnostic devices, in building this product. Together, we will be able to bring this revolutionary technology into the market faster. The partnership is also a strong vote of confidence on the technological prowess of SigTuple.”