Indian hormone kit to cost less, last long

The kits — which have undergone extensive trials in leading laboratories across the country — have won ‘Outstanding’ certificates twice from the prestigious External Quality Assurance Services programme of Bio-Rad in the United States (June 2004 and January this year).

Unlike the kits imported from abroad which cannot be preserved outside a cold chain and start degenerating the moment they come in contact with the external atmosphere, these hormone estimation kits have proved to be extremely stable in varied climatic conditions and can be preserved for as long as three months in temperatures touching a high of even 45 degree Celsius.

Incidentally, NIHFW — which has already applied for patenting the kits — claims to be the only centre in the world to have developed these temperature stabilised testing kits with such a prolonged shelf life. In stark contrast to the expensive imported kits, these kit reagents do not deteriorate even after repeated exposure to the environment.

NIHFW Director Prof Neeraj K Sethi is all smiles. ‘‘This is a major achievement for us. Low-production cost, long shelf life and the immuno-reagent stabilization technology makes it much more viable for the country’s needs. While we have already applied for patenting the kits, a NIHFW committee — including experts from the Department of Science and Technology, Indian Council of Medical Research and NIHFW Dean Prof K Kalaivani among others — is now evaluating the proposal for commercialization of these kits and searching for commercial partners. This would also help in resource generation for the institute,’’ he says.

The man behind the research, Dr T G Shrivastav, who works as a Reader in the Department of Reproductive Biomedicine at NIHFW says the scope of the research is immense.

‘‘The kits can be used in far-flung areas as well where no air-conditioning facility is available. What is even more promising is that the same technology can be adapted for developing other test kits as well,’’ he says. He is already working on developing a thyroid testing kit using the same stabilization technology.

While the imported hormone kits are priced in the range of Rs 8,000-10,000, these indigenous kits would cost only about Rs 1,000. ‘‘While private diagnostic laboratories charge anything between Rs 300-500 per sample for hormone testing now, here, for just material worth Rs 200 , 96 tests can be mounted and about 40 pair samples can be investigated. While others abroad have tried this technology, in no case has the shelf life gone up to 90 days. We have pioneered that,’’ says Dr Shrivastav.