New Delhi based Oscar Medicare, manufacturer of various in-vitro diagnostic kits, has developed a rapid test for detection of Corona virus antibody (Ab) using recombinant proteins developed indigenously in collaboration with Dhiti Life Sciences in New Delhi.

The recombinant protein of corona virus was developed by the scientific team under guidance of Dr. Abhinav Shrestha, a young scientist and Ph.D from National Institute of Immunology-Delhi.

The developmental work of recombinant protein of COVID-19 was initiated in the month of April looking urgent need of active raw material to bypass the dependency on foreign suppliers and country to support the vision of the Govt. of India “Aatma Nirbhar Bharat’.

Being a DSIR approved biotechnology lab, it was easy for the team of Dhiti Life Science to approach Dept of Biotechnology (DBT), BIRAC and other Govt agencies including THSTI for support in the development of 100% Indian test.

Dhiti Life Sciences has received BIRAC grant under their COVID-19 call for the project titled as “Development of Lateral flow test for the detection of anti-corona virus SARS-COV-2 specific IgG & IgM from human sera”. Under the same project above antigen and hence fully indigenous lateral flow device has been developed in collaboration with Oscar Medicare.

‘OSCAR CORONA ANTIBODY DETECTION TEST” is a rapid test kit which is quite simple to use and perform the even at bed side of the patient or at home. A small drop of finger pricked whole blood or Serum / plasma is sufficient to perform the tests and visual results can be obtained within 5 to 20 minutes. It is a qualitative rapid in-vitro diagnostic test which provides the information that whether suspected person has been exposed or not to COVID-19. The test is quite simple to perform in any general healthcare facilities without needs of specialized laboratory technologist and additional equipment. The kit is very stable at room temperature and its storage and transportation will not be an issue as per Indian climate.

The product has been validated and approved by ICMR lab-National Institute of Virology-Pune. As per ICMR report, OSCAR CORONA Antibody detection test has sensitivity of more than 97.66 % and specificity of 99%.  

Among the few manufacturer of rapid tests kits in Delhi NCR, Oscar is the first company to develop and validate the product with recombinant proteins of 100% Indian origin.