Transasia comes bearing good news on Rapid antigen testing for COVID - 19

The Times of India I Mumbai I 5th May, 2020: After the debacle over faulty Chinese test kits, there is good news on rapid testing for COVID. City firm Transasia Bio-Medicals Ltd. on Monday applied for central clearance to become the first in the country to offer the ELISA blood test to detect COVID even as American multinational Abbott announced it would ship rapid antibody test kits to India by mid-May.  Antibody testing is important to tell if someone has been previously infected. It can be used to detect an infection’s spread in containment zones. Transasia is the second firm in the world to develop the test for Covid. Its kits, which can perform 100 tests in one hour, have been used in US, Europe and South America, and have US FDA clearance. 

“The tests are fast, affordable and accurate,” said S Vazirani, who founded the firm here and Erba Mannheim in US.

“It is easy to operate, doesn’t require machines. As it widely used to test for HIV and hepatitis, lab technicians are familiar with it,” he added. The company said the tests will be available for Rs. 400- 500 each. “Five lakh tests were used in Italy. Brazil used 2 lakh last week,” he said. 

Meanwhile, Abbott said it would begin shipping its antibody test to India and will scale up to meet demand.

“The test has demonstrated specificity and sensitivity of greater than 99%, 14 days of more after symptoms started,” said the company. 

Abbott’s rapid test kit identifies IgG antibody, a protein the body produces in late stages of infection and may remain up to months and possibly years after a person has recovered. Last week, Union health minister Harsh Vardhan said local companies would develop antibody tests in bulk by May-end. Council of Scientific and Industrial Research’s Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (New Delhi) developed a paper-based rapid test strip for COVID-19 costing around Rs. 500.

About Transasia Bio-Medicals Ltd.: 

Founded in 1979, Transasia Bio-Medicals Ltd., India’s Leading In-vitro Diagnostic Company offers products and solutions in Biochemistry, Hematology, Coagulation, ESR, Immunology, Urinalysis, Critical Care, Diabetes Management, Microbiology and Molecular Diagnostics. 

Transasia provides doctors and patients with reliable, affordable and innovative Medical Diagnostic Systems, with an impressive install base of above 70,000 equipment across 30,000 labs in India. Over 150 crore blood tests get done every year on a Transasia instrument. It’s team of sales and service support is the largest in the Indian IVD Industry. The vast network of more than 300 service engineers, 400+ Sales and Marketing Team, 25 zonal offices, and 350+ Distributors allow us to reach out to over 5000 tier II-IV cities, towns and villages including the farthest north-eastern regions. 

It is the first Indian company to manufacture and export blood analyzers and reagents, in the 1990s. Today, Transasia’s indigenous research has resulted in development of state of the art, ‘Make in India’ products and technologies, enabling its products to be among the best in the world. 

All along its journey spanning more than four decades, Transasia has been recognized for its commitment to healthcare. The Govt. of India has bestowed Transasia with ‘The India Medical Devices Export Company of the Year’ award. Besides this, Transasia was conferred the ‘Economic Times- Best Brand 2019’ amongst many others. 

Headquartered in Mumbai, Transasia is a part of the global Erba Group. The Erba –Transasia Group has spread its footprint across USA, UK, Germany, Czech Republic, France, Italy, Russia and Turkey through various acquisitions. 

Erba’s production sites in India, Czech Republic and USA and R&D centres in France, UK, India and Czech Republic form a hub for indigenous manufacturing of world class deliverables.Today, the Erba -Transasia Group serves millions across 100 countries. For further information, kindly visit www.erbamannheim.com