New Delhi- An Indian biotechnology project claims to have made a significant breakthrough in cancer early detection that, if approved by regulators by the end of the year, could significantly advance cancer diagnosis and save millions of lives.
Epigeneres Biotechnology in Mumbai and Tzar Labs in Singapore, both led by nanotech scientist Vinay Kumar Tripathi and his family, have published their findings in a peer-reviewed journal based in Berlin, claiming 100 percent efficacy.
Dr. Tripathi's sons, Ashish and Anish, who are involved in the management of both businesses, told NDTV that their trial was able to recognize 25 different types of cancer in a 1,000-person clinical study, solving one of the disease's greatest challenges - detecting it in time for treatment.
"We intend to bring this technology to India first and our aim is to have it introduced by the end of the year. This is of course something that needs regulatory approval and we are talking to the right parties in the country," Ashish Tripathi said.
The family has agreed to call the treatment HrC after Dr. Tripathi's son-in-law and former high-profile Mumbai police officer Himanshu Roy died by suicide in 2018 while battling cancer.
"Our technology can detect any type of cancer. There are around 180 types of cancers that are known to man. Twenty-five is mentioned (in the first published paper) because those were the number of cancers that were covered in the clinical trial," Ashish Tripathi said.
Anish Tripathi, his brother, said the test was simple to use and could detect cancer signs years before symptoms appeared. The results usually take 3-4 days to receive, but he claims that automation advances will reduce this to 2 days.
"Most tests are invasive. This is a very simple test. You go for a blood test, it's non-invasive. You give a sample of 5 ml of your blood. And we run a test on that," Anish Tripathi said.
"We are going to keep it extremely low. That's the ethos of the company. We want this test to be made available to every individual and we want it to be affordable. The ambition is a world where all of us just need to do the HrC test just once a year and we will catch the cancer at Stage 1 or before," they said when asked about the price.
Amish Tripathi, a best-selling author, congratulated Ashish and Anish on their success on Twitter.
More global clinical trials are scheduled for Ashish and Anish Tripathi's procedure, and they hope to sell the HrC test under their companies' brands.