📋 Tender Overview
Prime Minister Narendra Modi embarks on his first foreign visit since the outbreak of COVID-19 to Bangladesh on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Countrys independence. India and Bangladesh have been long standing development partners and the Prime Ministerial visit underlines the importance both nations accord to each other.Both countries today share the common goal of greater investments in science technology and innovation particularly for a post-pandemic economic revival. Bilateral technological partnerships are critical to address common development challenges and achieve socio-economic growth in the region.One such partnership success that coincides with the PMs visit is under the Millennium Alliance MA Program. The MA is a partnership between Indias Department of Science and Technology DST USAID and the UK Government. While DST and USAID support scale up of innovations within India the UK Government supports scaling up of Indian innovations in developing countries across Africa and South Asia.In response to the COVID-19 crisis the Alliance announced a special call to fund and support Indian innovations tackling the COVID-19 pandemic. Under the call 15 innovations were supported with approx. Rs 10 crores for innovations with solutions to manage cure and arrest the spread of the pandemic in India and thereafter scaling them in South Asia and Africa.The Indian startup Huwel Lifesciences innovation COVID RT-PCR Kit was supported under the MA with a grant of Rs 60 lakhs to replicate and scale the innovation in Bangladesh. The Start-up has now signed a MoU with Bangladesh enterprise Sandor Medicaids to transfer the technology for manufacturing and marketing the kit in Bangladesh. The MoU is an example of how India and Bangladesh are collaborating to combat the pandemic.Huwel Lifesciencess COVID RT-PCR Kit is aimed at simplifying extraction and real-time PCR by involving lesser number of steps consumables and instruments. The kit is stable at 4 degrees rather than -20 degrees and can be transported at 4 degrees and can be performed without any chances of cross contamination.Prof Ashutosh Sharma Secretary Department of Science Technology Govt of India stated Science technology and innovation plays an increasingly critical role when the world is faced with unprecedented challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The Indian Government industry and startups responded quickly by developing targeted predictive preventive and curative technologies and solutions to fight the pandemic. We are now sharing our knowledge with our friends in Bangladesh through technology transfer of indigenously-developed COVID RT-PCR diagnostic technology supported by DBT DST and through one of its kind Public- Private- Partnership Program Millennium Alliance.Dr Ajai Chowdhry Chair FICCI Start-up Committee and Founder HCL stated Under the Millennium Alliance we have successfully scaled 48 Indian innovations in other developing countries in South Asia and Africa. The development of the COVID RT-PCR diagnostic technology in India and its transfer to Bangladesh demonstrates Indias technological prowess and strong innovation partnerships to achieve shared prosperity.Dr Shesheer and Dr Rachana Founders HuWel Lifesciences Hyderabad said We thank Governments of India and UK for selecting Huwel for MA grant and giving us an opportunity to transfer technology for manufacturing of COVID 19 RTPCR detection kits to Sandor Bangladesh. This will help in localisation of manufacturing where mobility is restricted due to pandemic.Mr Rajeev Sindhi and Mr Muhammad AR Sarkar Founders Sandor Medicaids Bangladesh stated Sandor Bangladesh is very excited to sign a technology transfer for manufacture of RT PCR Kits for the people of Bangladesh. We have always been at the forefront of bringing healthcare service to people of Bangladesh. It will be a new step for Bangladesh to manufacture its own RT PCR kits with the technology from Huwel Lifesciences.
