Manila Healthtek Inc. launched a new subsidiary called GenAmplify Technologies Inc. to bring health-related technologies closer to Filipinos.
GTI, named after one of MTek’s flagship products, will manufacture and distribute high-quality, accurate kits and devices related to diagnostic testing for communicable and non-communicable diseases.
These include MTek’s Biotek-M Dengue Aqua Kit, a gold medalist at the 46th International Exhibition of Inventions in Geneva, Switzerland in 2018, and the Philippines-developed GenAmplify Coronavirus 2019 RT-PCR test kit.
It will also market the GenAmplify African Swine Fever PCR Detection Kit, a testing platform for ASF.
Aside from marketing products developed by MTek, the company is also looking at sourcing from manufacturers outside the country quality rapid diagnostic kits that would respond to the needs of the country.
Atty. Marlo Destura, chief executive of GTI, said the firm’s main goal is to make diagnostics products both affordable and accessible to all. This is a mission it carries from parent company, MTek.
“The cost of molecular diagnostics is currently very prohibitive in the country. As clinicians’ partners in delivering much-needed tools to make precision diagnostics and deliver personalized treatments, we must always strive to find ways of fulfilling this,” he said.
One strategy the company is looking at is helping to expand the services of specialized COVID laboratories that have sprung throughout the country during the pandemic by including testing for other diseases.
“There are more than 200 molecular diagnostic laboratories in the country which already have PCR machines that we can tap. If we can utilize all of them, this would significantly lower the cost of testing in the country and will also reduce the timeframe and inconvenience for families,” Destura said.