IIT-B Startup Plans to Take Genome Testing to EU, US

HaystackAnalytics to invest up to $50 million in five years to fortify biz

- SOHINI DAS

A 75-year-old man from Kerala was suffering from months of persistent body pain and fatigue. Despite taking numerous conventional diagnostic tests, no conclusive diagnosis was made. Christian Medical College (CMC), Vellore, then validated infexn — a next-generation sequencing (NGS)-based assay developed by IIT Bombay-incubated startup HaystackAnalytics. Within 24 hours of sample collection, the infexn test could accurately identify the pathogen (a rare infection transmitted by fleas known as Murine Typhus, and caused by an intracellular bacteria, Rickettsia typhi). The diagnosis helped the medical team to administer the appropriate antibiotic, leading to the patient's rapid recovery.

NGS is the way forward for infectious diseases testing, says Gaurav Srivastava, cofounder and chief operating officer (COO), HaystackAnalytics. "When we look at the entire infectious world, we are looking at a pathogen base ranging from 3,000–30,000 different agents that can cause an infection to any of us," he says, adding that the number of agents is continuously increasing.