Haystack Analytics: Unravelling Genomic Sequencings in the fight against COVID

As per recent reports, three states including Maharashtra have reported mutated variants of Delta i.e Delta plus in four districts of the state including Mumbai. The emergence of new variants of the virus poses new threats and can undo the progress made by vaccination if the new variants can escape. In light of new strains, the testing kits will also have to be validated continuously to ensure that the new strains do not evade tests.

Genomic sequencing plays a crucial role in the fight against COVID to stop the spread of new strains through targeted shutdowns. In layman language, a genome contains genetic data of the micro-organism, and sequencing the genome helps researchers to get around 30K data points per sample. Theoretically, DNA fingerprinting can help trace the virus strains back to Wuhan.

States need to set up their own infrastructure for Genomic Sequencing. An example of this is Maharashtra, which set up its first genomic sequencing facility in Kasturba Gandhi Hospital. The hospital has collaborated with Haystack Analytics and installed the less capital-intensive Nanopore technology. Haystack Analytics is now doing 300 SARS-CoV-2 genomes per day.

Genome sequencing has the potential to impact healthcare delivery in an unimaginable way, however, the rate at which it is being adopted by Indian healthcare providers is considerably slow. One of the major reasons being the lack of technologies that can not only nudge the integration of genomics into healthcare but also bridge the gap between genomic applications and clinical practices.

Mumbai-based genomics analytics startup, HaystackAnalytics is striving to close this widening gap between the vast amount of genomic data and the limited analytical outcomes of the data by pioneering the world’s first completely automated genomic analysis solution. This SaaS Genomic diagnostics tool enables rapid pathogen identification and drug resistance in a single test. HaystackAnalytics is the brainchild of three tech-savants Anirvan Chatterjee, Gaurav Srivastava, and Kiran Kondabagil. They hold a strong background in Biosciences & Bioengineering and a robust hand in technology. The trio settled on the plan of leveraging state-of-the-art technologies to formulate proprietary Genomic Data (big data) handling technology that extracts data from any sequencing platform and makes it ready for deployment.

The company is part of the Virtual Connect program of Center of Excellence – IoT& AI, Gurugram, which is a Joint initiative of Ministry of Electronics & IT (MeitY), Govt. of Haryana and NASSCOM.

The team has designed the Omega suite to meet the requirements of the Bioinformaticians. They formulated several single tests including:

• ΩTB: Single-test to give a complete genomic analysis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis
• ΩID: Single test to accurately identify over 200 pathogens within 24 hours
• ΩAMR: Single test to identify the presence of antimicrobial resistance within 24 hours
• ΩGut: Identifies reduction in microbial diversity of gut microbiome which is critical for metabolism, immune modulation, and neurological functioning

ΩTB- a genome sequencing-based TB diagnostic comes at a reasonable price of 3K per test and provides data in 10 days of the test and takes only fifteen minutes to analyze and deliver information about 18 different drugs.

Established in 2018, HaystackAnalytics’ crowning achievements can be summarized into the completion of the Ω Suite for large data handling, the launch of the ΩTB for TB-DST, ΩID for AMR & Sepsis-in validation, and ΩOnco& NIPT in product design. It built a ΩCV for COVID strain which was piloted with the government as well.

“Our path-breaking Bioinformatics automation & SAAS GTM model is disrupting the industry. Leading hospitals like Metropolis, Thyrocare, Tata Memorial Hospital, J.J. Hospital, P.D. Hinduja Hospitals, and the Municipal Corporation of Mumbai have partnered with us and used our software that helped them run more than 100 samples every month. We have completed the validation of ΩTB with Govt. of Maharashtra and bagged around 3 Cr of funding and Angel investment from the founder of one of India’s Largest Diagnostic Companies,” Gaurav Srivastava, Co-founder and COO, HaystackAnalytics.

Setting the Future Goals

The team of Haystack Analytics is future-focused and have set their sights on launching several tests such as the ΩID at competitive rates and scale them to at least 10 hospitals in the next three months. They aim to expand their presence in the regions of the Middle East & South East Asia. The company is also looking forward to strengthening its footprints in the national and international market, raise funding, and run more than 250K tests by 2023.

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