Washington: A Kashmir-born entrepreneur, innovator and a creative scientist, Dr. Javid Wani is going to develop a diagnostic device for Cancer and Hepatitis C.
Dr. Wani and his team has made significant contribution toward the development of a fast and affordable technology with global implications in the molecular diagnosis of Hepatitis C infection. Javid Wani is affiliated to several scientific, Islamic and local organizations and is actively involved in the community with focus on mentoring undergraduate students interested in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) programs geared toward activities in robotics, bioinformatics, biotechnology and biopharmaceutical technology.
Dr. Wani completed his Master’s degree from the University of Kashmir and received training in Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, Center for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics, Hyderabad and Institute for Human Genetics, Nuherberg, Germany before pursuing his doctoral studies. He completed his Ph.D. in 2005 from the Ludwig Maximillians University, Munich, Germany and Postdoctoral Research Fellowship from the University of Texas Health Sciences Center (UTHSCSA), San Antonio.
While working as a Product Development Scientist in a Texas-based Biotechnology Company, Dr. Wani founded a HealthCare Services and Information Technology Company, called Ebaada HealthCare Solutions as his first entrepreneurial effort. Later he founded BioCentra LLC in 2008 wherein he directed his efforts exclusively towards research in peptide-based vaccines, cancer biopharmaceuticals and the development of innovative molecular diagnostic technologies.
The Kashmiri born scientist now owns several US patents and is globally connected to key opinion leaders in the fields of cancer, infectious diseases and vaccine research. He currently serves as a board member of three companies, is also a consultant for several biotechnology, and drug manufacturing companies, Ministries of health and clinical research organizations in the US and overseas. He has a special interest in helping Islamic countries implement advances in ground-breaking biomedical research and acquiring modern technologies in biopharmaceutical and personalized medicine, with special focus on Cancer, metabolic disorders and Infectious Diseases.
It is worth to mention that around 200 million individuals (2.5% of the world’s population) suffer from chronic HCV infection globally. Current annual market opportunity for big pharmaceuticals for this test alone is US $30 billion. Quantitative HCV testing is a gold standard for HCV diagnosis.
Treatment decisions are made upon initial testing and continued testing is required for observing the drug response. In developing nations, where patients have to bear healthcare costs from out of pocket, a single quantitative HCV RNA test costs anywhere from $%60-100 to the patient, with a need to test 4-5 times during the course of the treatment for monitoring the drug response, thereby, making cost a barrier for wider use. Testing procedures available with a qualitative characteristic based on the patient serotyping and HCV antibody presence in patient blood have been readily available for decades and are relatively cheap.
Diagnostics labs desire simpler, affordable, and faster alternatives that are potentially being promised by BioCentra through its platform independent test kit - GoldQuant™ that is expected to be more than 50% cheaper and will be 20 times much faster than the existing HCV testing platforms from big technology companies.
Hepatitis C molecular diagnostics is overwhelmed with mechanistic complexity, lengthy testing periods, high regulatory stakes and unaffordable cost for patients without a private health insurance.
Innovation in molecular diagnostics of infectious diseases, cancer, metabolic and psychiatric diseases has been tremendous in the past decade. Things have changed less particularly for HCV diagnostics.
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