Allergies occur when a person’s immune system overreacts to contact with certain foods, plants, insects, animals, and drugs. A healthy immune system produces proteins known as IgE antibodies that protect individuals from exposure to external substances that could cause illness, infection, and disease. In patients with allergies, the immune system makes specific-IgE antibodies that mistakenly identify an allergen as something harmful. This triggers the release of histamines and other substances in the body to “counteract” that exposure, causing allergy symptoms. Allergic rhinitis, asthma and eczema are the most commonly experienced expressions of allergy.
Diagnostic tests play a key role in the management of allergy wherein the two most common tests used to confirm the diagnosis of allergy are: Blood tests and Skin tests. Blood tests measure the amount of IgE antibody circulating in the blood that is specific to a particular allergen. The Skin tests involves insertion of a series of allergens into skin by needle, where the positive “wheal-and flare” reactions are compared to controls.
Currently the allergy testing segment is heavily dominated by the “Lab segment” which means blood samples are drawn from the patients and sent to specialized diagnostic labs, which analyse the samples and release the results over 72-96 hours. The results are then interpreted by the Physician to alert the patients about their allergy profile and treatment initiated. It is estimated that more than 50% of the Indian patients complaining of respiratory symptoms have underlying allergy as the root cause. Without proper identification of the allergens responsible for the symptoms, a vast majority of the patients are administered various drugs as a chronic therapy, which could have been avoided altogether.
Consytel Life Sciences has embarked upon development of a bedside Invitro diagnostic allergen panel kit that can detect upto 100 Indian allergen triggers within 20 minutes at room temperature with a few drops of patient’s blood. This would open up a huge chunk of underserved market that is currently not appropriately addressed by the Primary care Physician. The immediate identification of allergens responsible for the symptoms would facilitate a major shift in accurate medical care for the mass Indian population. In addition to development of the Point of Care Allergy detection kit, Indian allergens would be extracted and used in the panel, which would vastly improve the quality of allergy detection.
