Genomics is not the latest interdisciplinary addition to the field of biology. Genome, the data house of a living being, has always been studied by biologists. Sequencing genome opens a treasure trove of knowledge regarding any diseases. The reason why genomics didn’t easily come out of the academic circle is due to the long period required to analyse genomic data. 

With the lack of rapid analysis and technology suited for agility, genomics and its application remained unaccessible to healthcare professionals. One startup aiming to address the challenges of genomic application is HaystackAnalytics. Usually, the analysis time of genomics sequencing would stretch for several days, but HaystackAnalytics can reduce the time to mere minutes. 

This Mumbai based startup was founded by Dr Anirvan Chatterjee, Prof Kiran Kondabagil and Gaurav Srivastava. The startup was incubated at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT-B). Prof. Kondabagil is at IIT with experience in molecular biology whereas Srivastava is an alumnus of IIT with expertise in navigation tech startups from India and Singapore. Dr Chatterjee has worked with the University of Oxford and DTU Denmark. His experience lies in the deployment of Next Generation Sequencing in the field of healthcare.

The venture offers genomic diagnostics within minutes by using a SaaS solution. They offer tests on TB, causative pathogen, COVID detection and more. Their first product was launched on June 2021 for TB diagnostics. Its technology has also helped the government recognise COVID patterns.

HaystackAnalytics was able to scale its venture with the help of the Intel Startup Programme. Intel has a strong global position in computing technology and holds the expertise of eminent partners like MIT and Harvard. HaystackAnalytics was able to grow the total market by 20x and now owns 90% of the market share. They have partnered with diagnostics labs like Thyrocare, Dr Lal Path Labs, Metropolis, Anderson and more. They even have AIIMS and CMC Vellore as their partner.  

HaystackAnalytics aims to make genomic sequencing a part of daily diagnostics. Will their tech help millions of Indians get accurate and timely diagnoses?