The roadmap ahead to lead Agappe into further success

Agappe Diagnostics Ltd., with 26 years of market standing, is one of the fastest-growing IVD industry in India. Agappe is a purely research-driven organization with 850 staff members. More than 10 percent of our work force works for R&D department and we do spend more than 6 percent of our revenue for R&D, which is under the guidance of our Technical Director, Dr (Prof) MD Vasudevan, who was earlier the Dean of the College of Medicine at Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, and the Principal of the Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences and Research, Kochi, India. He is a famous academician and author of the renowned book Textbook of Biochemistry for Medical Students.

As everyone in IVD sector points out, molecular diagnostics (MDx), next-generation sequencing (NGS), point-of-care (POC) devices, and Internet of Things (IoT)-based systems will be the promising segments of the diagnostic industry, which are going to share the major chunk of new developments in the pipeline as far as diagnostic healthcare is concerned.

Agappe has a well-planned roadmap ahead of time, where we are a methodical and quality-conscious company. We have an established state-of-the-art MDx laboratory with all modern amenities as well as well qualified and dedicated post-doctorate scientists to take forward new panels in MDx platform for the nation, where quality and affordability are the watch words.

Due to the peculiar nature of the pandemic, free movements are arrested, and doctors or patients do not want to visit to hospital lab or other labs where many visitors carry highly infective microbes causing sporadic infections and boosting pandemic in a big way. POC devices are in vogue ever after the Covid-19 restrictions, from late 2020s. Such scare has given birth to the POC devices, where smaller and compact machines can go to the patient/clinician’s side and deliver test results in a very short time, than visiting big labs and waiting for the results for hours or even days. Such POC machines can find a placement in any of the clinicians with a single aid, so that they can have results instantaneously, with one or two simple steps with patient’s whole blood or serum.

No cardiologist wants to send his emergency patients with chest congestion to the central lab on to another floor or building or forwarding the sample to some outside lab for any test on heart attack. He can very well afford to have a POC machine, which can well give him satisfactory results of CKMB, NT proBNP test results within 5 minutes in his own room to issue his prescription and save the golden minutes for the patient to minimize very serious damage.

Sequence-based detection technologies, either sanger sequencing method or NGS (next-generation sequencing) methods are more promising. Though NGS method is expensive, results produced by NGS method reduce overall hospital expenses. Nucleic acids (DNA/RNA) can be extracted from the clinical samples and used as input for sequencing methods to detect pathogens. Studies indicate that culture method can detect pathogens with sensitivity up to 60 percent, where NGS detects pathogens with a sensitivity of 95–98 percent.

IoT or the Internet of Things means a lot like it sounds. The IoT is a growing system of billions of devices or things worldwide that connect to the internet and to one another through wireless networks. IoT wants to connect all potential devices to provide secure interfacing and more comfort life for humans. Everything from your toothbrush to your toaster may be connected to the internet 24×7.

Then, your gadgets will become household aides, each chatting with one another, working to serve you better. They can range from a Wi-Fi pet camera to a medical device implanted in your body, like a pacemaker and send the desired data 24×7.

As long as the device is able to connect to the internet and has sensors that transmit data, it can be considered an IoT device.

Agappe, your best partner in diagnostics, is geared up to serve you better with the rising demand of the healthcare fraternity, with quality and affordability, as always.