5 startups set to join fight against Covid-19

Bengaluru: Five startups have been selected by the Bengaluru-based Centre for Cellular and Molecular Platforms (C-CAMP) to push forward Covid-19 innovations will work on assisted respiratory devices, rapid diagnostics and preventatives.

The startups are CoSara Diagnostics Pvt Ltd and Ampligene Diagnostics Pvt Ltd for rapid diagnostics, Coeo Labs and Avyantra for assisted respiratory devices and Anabio Technologies Pvt Ltd for preventatives.

Last week, C-CAMP along with the United Nations Health Innovation Exchange (UNHIE) and Social Alpha had invited innovators, startups and entrepreneurs to push forward Covid-19 innovations and launched a special Accelerator named as COVID-19 Innovations Deployment Accelerator (C-CIDA).


C-CIDA will now connect these five companies with industry partners as well as government agencies for scale and deployment.
“Depending on the specific needs of each individual company, in play are pilot testing, fast-track regulatory clearance, CSR funding support, investments and industry scale-up geared towards quick deployment,” said C-CAMP.

As far as preventive technologies are concerned, the focus would be on developing an affordable technology that can quickly turn a mask and also any normal cotton cloth into an effective virus-blocker and protective gear like N95 masks, sanitised hospital linen and PPE grade outerwear, which are in low in supply.

“If and when community transmission sets in India, reports say that in a worst case scenario we may have 2.2 million cases with an estimated 5-10% of total patients requiring ICU and critical care in the form of ventilator support. Having a maximum of ~57k ventilators at our disposal, Indian healthcare system will need an urgent supply of ventilators and even more importantly proper triaging to identify patients who need the support most. With low-cost Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) machines at hand, clinicians will be better equipped to allot resources optimally saving more lives,” C-CAMP said.