India now has most comprehensive TB test; can check sensitivity to 18 antibiotics

Representative image Ctsy: Reuters

HaystackAnalytics, a health-tech start-up incubated at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, has collaborated with healthcare solution provider LifeCell to offer India’s first genetic test diagnosing drug-resistant tuberculosis. The text was unveiled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a bio-tech expo in June this year.

ΩTB or Omega TB, the whole genome sequencing test, has a starting price of Rs 6,500, and will be capable of offering a drug susceptibility profile for 18 antibiotics, including bedaquiline, delamanid and clofazimine.

The current culture and molecular tests provide limited information and can take weeks for results. ΩTB is a single test that identifies all the diagnostic information on TB infections and screens resistance to the 18 antibiotics in just 10-12 days.

According to Mayur Abhaya, managing director & CEO, LifeCell India, the test has the potential to reshape the landscape of TB testing and diagnosis in the preventive healthcare segment.

Anirvan Chatterjee, co-founder and CEO of HaystackAnalytics, pointed out that leading developing economies such as the UK had transitioned to TB whole genome sequencing a long time back and emphasised that the test will enable clinicians in India to deliver treatments more efficiently.

The test can identify low-frequency resistance mutations and heterogeneous resistance with greater sensitivity. Whole genome sequencing is also known for predicting resistant phenotypes against anti-TB drugs, and designing an optimum personalised treatment regimen, thereby enhancing favourable treatment outcomes in TB endemic settings, such as in India.

With the launch of this affordable genome sequence analysis, clinicians and patients will have access to one of the most powerful assessment tools to get vital insights and directions, said the two companies.

Drug resistant TB in India

If a person has drug resistant TB it means that their illness will not respond to at least one of the main TB drugs. In 2020, of about 9 lakh new and relapsed cases of the disease, about 1,20,000 were drug resistant(DR), multi-drug resistant (MDR) or extensively drug resistant (XDR) TB.

It is estimated that only about half of DR, MDR and XDR TB patients seek treatment, even though the fatality rate due to the ailment in such patients is 7-8 times higher, as compared to TB.

While India has set itself an ambitious target of eliminating the highly infectious bacterial disease by 2025, by all accounts, the target is likely to be missed. Some modelling studies suggest that by 2032, 85 percent of all TB cases in the country would be drug resistant.

As of now, the country has the highest burden of TB as well as drug resistant TB globally. It also reports the highest deaths in the world due to the disease every year — in 2019, 4.93 lakh patients had succumbed to the ailment.