Algo-Based COVID-19 Testing Tool To Be Launched By IIT-B Scientist Gets DCGI Approval
- ByStartupStory | June 23, 2021
Tech startup Algorithmic Biologics, received regulatory approvals to launch its COVID-19 testing method called Tapestry from Drugs Controller General (DCGI) or commercial use as a non-regulated medical device and has also been registered with the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization. the new testing tool is developed by the startup launched by IIT-Bombay professor Manoj Gopalkrishnan He elaborated about the device and said, “Tapestry lowers testing time to four hours, which is just a tenth of the present time taken by the traditional RT-PRC tests, while the cost is under 50 per cent of the lowest such test at around Rs 250.”
The tool has undergone sampling tests on over 8,000 people since last July at the Institute for Stem Cell Science & Regenerative Medicine, Bengaluru, and the Centre for Cellular & Molecular Biology in Bengaluru. Clinical trials were carried out at Tata Memorial Centre.
“It enables the safe reopening of places of work and education as it is affordable and can be used frequently using a single round quantitative pooling algorithm with the gold-standard RT-PCR test,” said Manoj Gopalkrishnan. The tool works like a compression algorithm for molecular testing and uses samples from different individuals, which are mixed into pools using a code.