Advances in medical technologies, that came with the inclusion of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning, Internet of Things (IoT), and deep tech, have revolutionised diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB) -- the world's largest infectious disease killer -- in India, said experts on Thursday ahead of the World Tuberculosis Day. "Yes! We can end TB!" is the theme for this year and urges leaders from around the world to act to stop the TB epidemic.
Modern advances in digital radiology, AI/ML and Nucleic Acid Amplification techniques have now come together to provide rapid, accurate and affordable diagnostics across multiple settings including remote point of care locations, without the need to have well-trained technicians or very extensive infrastructure," Chandrasekhar Nair, Director & CTO, Molbio Diagnostics, told IANS.
Stop TB Partnership recently partnered with an Indian company, Molbio Diagnostics, to expand access to rapid molecular tests for TB globally.
Three international organisations, the Global Fund, USAID and Stop TB Partnership, have entered into a collaboration with Molbio Diagnostics to expand access to the Goa-based company’s Truenat platform.
India has only 17 profitable unicorn start-ups, according to market research platform, Tracxn. The country houses 114 unicorns of which 80 startups' data is publicly available. A unicorn is a company valued at $1 billion or above. The data has been extracted from financial statements of FY21 and FY22. Other profitable start-ups in the list are Molbio Diagnostics, Uniphore, Xpressbees, Physicswallah, IPO-bound Mamaearth, CoinDCX, and more.
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (the Global Fund), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Stop TB Partnership announced a new collaboration today with Molbio Diagnostics that significantly reduces the price of the Truenat® MTB and MTB Plus tests, including a supply of MTB-RIF Dx tests for subsequent testing for rifampicin resistance, and ensures timely service and maintenance of diagnostic instruments.
Molbio Diagnostics has made a significant contribution to tackling tuberculosis (TB) through its latest announcement of the largest multi-country roll-out of a TB test. The Indian-based company has developed a breakthrough technology called TrueNat, which offers accurate and affordable testing for TB within 60 minutes.
The last startup to reach the $1 billion valuation in India was Goa-based diagnostics chain Molbio Diagnostics, which had raised funds at a valuation of $1.6 billion in September 2022.
Five districts in Kashmir have reported zero Tuberculosis cases, as per a District Level Annual Survey conducted by National Tuberculosis Elimination Program (NTEP) Kashmir for the Sub National Certification.
Truenat MTB-INH is also expected to play a major role internationally, in high TB-burden countries as well as countries that already have a policy in place for INH testing on all TB-positive samples, it claimed.
