As demand for Covid-19 self-test kits falls in India, manufacturers look at global markets

With Covid-19 pandemic receding and testing for the virus decreasing in India, demand for Covid self test kits is increasing in global markets.

In May 2021, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) had approved a home-based RAT kit manufactured by Mylab Discovery Solutions, Pune. Since then diagnostic majors, Abbott, Tata Medical and Diagnostics, and Trivitron Healthcare also entered into the home-based Covid-19 testing business. The demand for self Covid-19 testing kits, however, is going down in India due to lower Covid-19 cases and equally lower testing, leading to Indian manufacturers exporting these kits to other countries.

“Currently there is lower demand of Covid test kits in India, we are still witnessing demand for our Covid test kits from international markets. We are seeing a rise in demand for our self-test kit, CoviSelf from Middle East, South Africa and South East Asia, particularly from Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines, since early June this year,” Hasmukh Rawal, MD, Mylab Discovery Solutions, told BT.

According to a recent report by Brandessence Market Research the market size for self–testing kits was valued at $5.96 Billion in 2020 and is expected to reach $8.11 billion by 2027 with the CAGR of 4.50 per cent over the forecast period, promising a robust forecast.

“With the Covid case numbers going down, the number of RT-PCR and home tests being done has reduced dramatically. Another factor is that most countries now do not insist on RT-PCR report for travel, and instead only require vaccination certificate,” Dr Harsh Mahajan, founder & Chief Radiologist of Delhi-based Mahajan Imaging said.

As per GlobalData’s Covid database, as of April 25, 2022, there were in total 509,909,397 confirmed cases of Covid-19, with 6,219,996 deaths recorded worldwide. At a global level, approximately 11.5 billion people had been vaccinated against Covid-19 with the immunisation rate being higher than 70 per cent in the developed nations.

Pharma and health experts believe that in India everything about Covid has been expected to be delivered by the state, such as free vaccines, testing and hospitals to a large extent. Further, as test kits are low in demand, it is obvious for companies to look for other markets.

"The moment vaccines [booster dose] went into the private market we saw vaccinations fall. The government is now bringing it back into free distribution for 75 days to counter that decline. Self Covid tests have to be paid for, and most Indians probably aren’t comfortable doing that," said Salil Kallianpur, former executive vice president of GSK Pharma, and now a pharma industry analyst and consumer behaviour specialist.

"The accuracy of such tests is under scrutiny. During the third wave in Jan 2022, there was a phase where anyone who tested got a positive. Such false positives probably caused people to get disinterested in testing. Overall, with the reduction of Covid specific regulations such as masks, tests, vaccine certification, travel rules, etc., Indians have more or less relegated Covid to an unpleasant past, thus, [the] demand of test kits is falling," he said.