Disease patterns in India have undergone a dramatic shift. Non-communicable diseases are emerging as a major cause of increased morbidity and mortality. This shift necessitates lifestyle changes with continuous screening and adherence to clinical protocols. Further, chronic conditions such as anaemia continue to have a high prevalence. More than half the women of childbearing age in India are anaemic and 33% are undernourished. A malnourished mother is more likely to give birth to malnourished children. In addition, the burden of diabetes is high and increasing globally. The estimates in 2019 showed that 77 million individuals had diabetes in India, which is expected to rise to over 134 million by 2045.
Biosense has developed point-of-care devices that address extremes of anaemia, diabetes and more. Their flagship product – ToucHb – is a non-invasive anaemia screener, which means it detects anaemia without a needle poke by identifying the presence of pallor in conjunctiva. Another key product developed by Biosense is Biosense SYNC. This is a smart, all-in-one, compact sized glucometer designed for personal use. It is designed, developed and manufactured in India, and has affordable glucose test strips provided with it. Biosense uses connected diagnostics with geo-tagging. Data generated by these devices enable targeted use of scarce government resources. All its devices are portable,, and they use advanced algorithms to deliver care in under-resourced settings.
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has emerged as a major threat to public health. Resistant infections can be difficult, and sometimes, impossible to treat. Misuse and overuse of antibiotics is the main cause of AMR. Lack of clean water and sanitation and inadequate infection prevention and control promotes the spread of microbes, some of which can be resistant to antimicrobial treatment. India carries one of the largest burdens of drug-resistant pathogens worldwide.
Diagnostic cultures take 3-5 days and during this time medication gets initiated without the culture results being known. This can accelerate AMR. Hence, it becomes critical to have diagnostic technologies that can undertake rapid pathogen identification, which will lead to quicker, targeted treatment and medication, ultimately eliminating AMR.
Omix has developed a next generation molecular biology-based diagnostics platform for rapid detection of infectious diseases. Its DNA-based proprietary tests allow detection of infection-causing bugs within a few hours. Omix provides specific information on AMR, enabling targeted treatment. More importantly, its proprietary ambient stable protocols make it possible to use it in under-resourced settings.
It is estimated that around 6.7 million people in the world are suffering from chronic wounds. One in four diabetes patients develop ulceration in the foot, and 70% of these wounds do not get healed because of a mismanaged infection. The traditional ways in which an infected wound is diagnosed is through a culture test, doppler test, CT angiography or biopsy. These are costly, and the report generation takes a few days, depending on where the patient is located.
Adiuvo Diagnostics’ flagship product – Illuminate – is a rapid, point-of-care, handheld device that diagnoses wound infections and does pathogen classification in significantly less amount of time than traditional methods. Living bacteria have an autofluorescence property; it emits light in response to appropriate stimuli. Illuminate creates multi-spectral images of an infected wound based on the light emitted by the pathogens and assesses the images using AI and deep learning. It is then able to detect and classify the pathogen in less than 2 minutes! This platform technology has wider application beyond wound management to areas such as skin parameter assessment, cancer diagnostics, and water quality assessment.
