Now, early diagnosis possible

Dev Nadkarni



An Auckland-based biochemist couple’s innovative new technology is set to simplify and quicken the way immuno-diagnostic tests are conducted both in humans and animals across the world—at costs far less than existing methods.
The technology that Anand and Sarita Kumble began developing in a garage about three years ago can test a drop of blood for a whole range of diseases using simple, low cost equipment and procedures making it attractive especially for the healthcare systems of the developing world where diagnostic labs are poorly equipped.
The lab end equipment comprises a set of panels developed using their technology and a PC loaded with proprietary software that detects diseases by assessing microscopic patterns that the blood being tested makes with different sets of reagents that are microscopically embedded in the panels.
Specific kits can test for diseases ranging from HIV, hepatitis B and C to rheumatic fever, tuberculosis and almost anything in between.
“This is just right for environments like the Pacific Islands where the incidence of diseases that can be cured if detected early is high,” says Anand.
“Unfortunately, there aren’t avenues for early diagnosis and the ailments come to light when it’s too late. Rheumatic fever is a classic example.
“Untreated rheumatic fever damages cardiac muscle, by the time the kids are 8 or 10 it gets bad. Left unchecked it can well lead to valve replacement. Early detection can save lives.
“We have simple kits that can detect such ailments at a young age and prevent complications in later life that are very expensive to fix.”
They have already touched base with the health departments of Samoa and Fiji and are looking to implement a project shortly in Taveuni facilitated by an NGO. They hope to take their technology across all the Pacific Islands.
In the past few months, their company Pictor, has signed on deals that could potentially catapult it into the big league of the diagnostics business in India, Europe, the US and beyond. In India, it has partnered with the Reliance group, one of the country’s biggest businesshouses, and successfully beta tested kits for testing arthritis.
Pictor has also been commissioned by one of the world’s largest farm animal diagnostic test manufacturers and a major Swedish autoimmune diagnostics company to develop more cost-effective and simpler testing techniques using its patented technology. If successful, these companies will distribute the kits to their markets in Europe and the US.
“Pictor is now on the cusp of commercialisation,” Anand says. “We’re now about to begin discussions with Reliance on the manufacturing of the panels and kits, which we propose to do here in Auckland as long as the volumes are manageable.”
The diagnostic market in India is estimated at $200 million—of which 34% is the immunodiagnostic segment—and is expected to grow at an annual rate of 10 to 15% due to an increasing awareness of healthcare among the growing middle class and growth of health insurance schemes that require diagnostic tests.
The current worldwide market for autoimmune disease testing (HIV, rheumatic fever) is over $400 million.
Anand and Sarita met while pursuing their doctorates in biochemistry at Mumbai University, then married and moved to the US to study and work at Stanford University (Anand worked with celebrated geneticist and Nobel laureate Arthur Konberg) and a few high technology immunodiagnostic firms in the San Francisco Bay Area.
According to Anand, a “serendipitous” meeting with another Nobel Laureate, Joshua Lederberg, gave them the idea of developing innovative diagnostic technologies that were inexpensive and easy to perform even in countries that had minimal diagnostic infrastructure.
“Dr Lederberg was on the United Nations panel for the Millennium Development Goals and he said that there was technology available that could be adapted to develop cost-effective diagnostic systems,” says Anand.
“Someone just had to do it,” he continues. “Technologies exist, we need to learn how to use these to solve immediate problems. But in the west, development of drugs and technology is being chased relentlessly to achieve some big success that may be years away, neglecting what can be done to solve the problems with technology that already exists and is available.”
Work first brought Anand to New Zealand in 1995 when Genesis hired him as one of its first biotechnologists. He went back to the US two years later returning intermittently and finally moved back to Auckland in 2005.
The couple soon met up with Kiwi veterinarian Sandy Ferguson who helped raise the first round of capital to set up Pictor. “A quick, easy and effective method to test large herds of cattle was in Sandy’s wish list for many years,” Anand says.
They got together a band of investors and raised $90,000, which was matched by New Zealand government funding agency Foundation for Research Science and Technology (FRST). Late last year, Pictor raised a further $460,000 from investors and FRST.
While their new tie-ups in India and Europe will take Pictor’s technologies to the big diagnostic markets globally, Anand and Sarita are keenly interested in helping smaller, severely disadvantaged countries where people have been suffering from a range of ailments because early detection is not possible. Clearly for this couple, money is not the sole yardstick of success.
Meanwhile, Pictor is being wooed by ventures from as far afield as San Francisco and Mumbai and Bangalore but for now the Kumbles want to give New Zealand their best shot and plan to flag off Pictor’s manufacturing operations from Auckland.