First Indian Firm Receives License To Make COVID-19 Test Kit

India has been asked by WHO to increase the number of testing kits for COVID-19 as the currently available test kits aren’t enough for the country’s large population.

Now, CoSara Diagnostics Pvt Ltd, a company in Ahmedabad has reportedly become the first in India to get a license from the Central Drugs Standards Control Organization to make COVID-19 test kits. And it will become the only company in India that can manufacture reagent kits that are used to test for coronavirus in the RPT-PCR machines.

The company is registered in Ahmedabad but its manufacturing plant is located in Ranoli, Vadodara. It received the license on March 17, one month after it submitted its application to the CDSCO.

It’s a joint venture of US-based Co-Diagnostics Inc of Utah and Indian based Ambalal Sarabhai Enterprises. Co-Diagnostics had already developed the test kit for COVID-19 in the US. Now, the company was planning on manufacturing these kits in India. So far, the test kits have been imported from other countries to India.

According to CoSara Diagnostics’ CEO, Mohal Kartikeya Sarabhai, the company has ordered raw materials from its partner in the US. Once the materials arrive, the manufacturing process will begin shortly.

The company claims that it will only take 2 to 2.5 hours for its test kit to deliver results. Meanwhile, the test kits used by ICMR take five hours.

There is no information regarding the test kit’s price when it is sold to the government. However, Sarabhai states that it will be cheaper than the test kit imported from other countries.

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