I will analyze some competitors of 3BBB’s RTPCR kits to understand how they fare. There are so many of them that I am prioritizing by the initial 5 that were approved by ICMR:
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Altona: They do not detect the RDRP gene. As per the video shared by @enelay the doctor mentions that RDRP has highest specificity for detecting Covid among all genes. The altona test does have USFDA EUA so in that sense is as good as TruePCR. Note that it is based out of germany, not an Indian manufacturer.
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My Lab: While TruePCR has moved to a 1-tube assay, MyLab still has only a 3-tube assay. This is actually higher impact than we realized and is also beautifully covered in the video i linked before. A lab using MyLab RTPCR can only do 30 tests at a time since each test requires 3 tubes. This means 3x lower throughput than latest TruePCR Covid test. 3x lower testing rates. 3x lower revenues for the lab. Also, their tests take 2.5 hours compared to TruePCR’s 1.5 hours. Again, a factor of 1.66x lower revenues and throughput (the video mentions Mylab’s test takes 1.5 hours but all Mylab documentation points towards 2.5 hours so i am going with what MyLab is telling me assuming video made a typo). MyLab also does not have USFDA EUA approval.
- Seegene: A korean listed competitor. BTW, also have very high margins, high fixed asset turns. Verifies our hypothesis about industry wide high margins and fixed asset turns. Co was making decent profits and has decent growth pre-covid as well (this was not the case for co diagnostics). Was valued at 25x TTM earnings pre-covid. This throws some light on what a reasonable valuation for 3BBB might look like in steady state with decent growth (15% top line growth over 5 years). Single tube test. TAT of 1.844 hours (slightly higher than TruPCR). Seems to match TruPCR on almost all parameters.
- SD BioSensor: Korean private company. Also USFDA EUA Approved. Their website gives a 404 error for the covid test product. Here is a google cached version from 31st may 2021. Looks for RDRP and E gene but not the N gene. In this way, slightly inferior to TrurPCR and Seegene. The number of tubes is not mentioned anywhere from what I can tell.
- Co-diagnostics/Ambalal Sarabhai: (not included in ICMR initial approval but including since they are also a competitor: Ambalal does not own the tech or the product. I concluded this because ambalal website redirects to Co-diagnostics whenever there is a link about products or technology. The real brain is Co-diagnostics. As I stated before, their test is not yet USFDA EUA approved. Apart from that, could not figure out how many tubes it uses. Only looks for RDRP and E gene not the N gene and in that way is similar to SD Biosensor test. Takes 1.5 hours.
A next level of analysis would be to figure out what these tests are selling for in India currently. Would enable us to understand whether TruPCR has any cost advantages, specially over the Korean tests which are high quality and similar to TruPCR tests.
Disc: Invested, studying, biased.