Hyderabad, June 2 (PTI): CSIR- Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) here on Wednesday said it has tied up with Meril Life Sciences for commercially scaling up its dry swab-based tests for detecting COVID-19.

The premier research institute, in a press release, said the dry swab-based direct RT-PCR for COVID-19 testing has been developed by the CCMB and has been approved by ICMR based on their independent validation.

This method is a simple variation of the existing gold standard RT-PCR method and can easily scale up the testing by 2 to 3-fold with no new investment of resources.

Rakesh Mishra, Advisor, CSIR-CCMB, said RNA extraction, even with automation, usually takes four hours for roughly 500 samples.

The viral transport medium (VTM) and RNA extraction both add a significant burden on money and time required for mass testing for coronavirus.

"We believe this method has the potential of bringing the costs and time of testing by 40-50 per cent in all kinds of settings, Mishra said.

Meril is currently equipped to manufacture two crore kits a month.

Each kit suffices for 100 tests.

Using these kits, each test will cost between Rs 45-60, according to the release.

Dr Vinay Nandicoori, Director, CSIR-CCMB, said, In this method, one can simply break open the cells by using a buffer solution and use them for RT-PCR directly. There is no need for separate steps of RNA extraction and purification."

Sanjeev Bhatt, Vice-President - Corporate Strategy, Meril, said, We are the first company to commercially launch the dry swab kit. It is imperative in these times to get a quick RT-PCR result and this method helps in doing so by eliminating the lengthy RNA extraction process."

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