IIT Delhi launches ‘Corosure’ claimed to be world’s most affordable diagnostic kit for Covid

'Corosure', World’s most affordable diagnostic kit for coronavirus, a low-cost test kit developed by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi.
The base price of the RT-PCR assay developed by IIT Delhi is Rs 399. Even after adding the RNA isolation and laboratory charges, the cost per test will go up to Rs 650 and will be considerably cheaper compared to currently available kits in the market. It can deliver results within three hours.
IIT Delhi, which became the first academic institute to get ICMR nod for a COVID-19 testing method, gave non-exclusive open licence to 10 companies for commercialising the test, but with a price rider of R 500 for the assay needed for testing.
The kit Corosure has been commercialised by Newtech Medical Devices.
According to the team at IIT Delhi, the current testing methods available are “probe-based”, while the one developed by them is a “probe-free” method, which reduces the testing cost without compromising on accuracy.