The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has said it will allow firms that use its intellectual property to manufacture items for containing COVID-19 to defer payments for up to six months.

These will include diagnostic kits, personal protective equipment, drugs and health equipment.

In this time of grave crisis, it is desirable that technology licensing and knowledge licensing for technology and products developed by CSIR is facilitated enabling mass production, according to a note from the organisation.

Currently the 38 labs of the organisation have 41 dedicated technologies to deal with the pandemic.

They include a paper strip-based test to detect the virus, various kinds of hand sanitisers, a pre-fabricated makeshift hospital and a 3-D printed ventilator.

Being a publicly funded organisation, technologies developed by the CSIR are generally available to the industry on a non-exclusive licensing basis, that is any company can earn the right to manufacture and sell a product provided they pay a technology fee.

The clause for deferred royalty/upfront payment and co-branding will be included as an integral part of the agreement, according to the note.

CSIR Director-General Shekhar Mande told The Hindu that the deferment would not apply if a firm planned on exporting such equipment.

The organisations thrust areas are on developing diagnostic kits. The paper-based test uses gene editing technology to rapidly test for the presence of the virus and is being validated for mass manufacturing.

Mr. Mande said the organisation was working to develop serology or antibody tests that were cheap and could be quickly deployed for checking prevalence of the disease in community settings.

The Indian Council of Medical Research on Monday suspended contracts to deploy 6,00,000 antibody tests after they reported inconsistent results from field tests.

Three CSIR laboratories were already part of the network of government laboratories involved in testing for the disease. These were the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, the Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine and the Institute of Microbial Technology.

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CSIR to let firms defer fee on use of its technology - The Hindu