On Tuesday, pharmaceutical giant Cipla said it has partnered with diagnostics firm Genes2Me to launch a COVID-19 RT PCR test kit in the country. In a regulatory filing, the Mumbai-based pharmaceutical company said that it is expanding its diagnostic offerings with the launch of the “RT-Direct Multiplex COVID-19 RT PCR” test kit.

It added that Cipla will be responsible for distributing RT Direct kits in India and has already started supplying the same. The pharmaceutical company said the kit has been validated by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and is much more advanced than other RT PCR tests.

It added that the RT-Direct test protocol does not require any RNA extraction process, making it faster and helping to provide results within 45 minutes. It will also triple the throughput of any testing lab compared to the normal RT-PCR testing protocol time of 120-150 minutes, Cipla noted.