Breakthrough Solutions and Cost-Disruptive Innovations for Screening and Diagnosis, a Request for Proposals launched by Grand Challenges India (Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council), seeks transformative, high-risk, high-reward innovations that fundamentally rethink how infectious disease diagnosis and screening are performed, with a target cost of approximately INR100 or US$1 per test.

Overview

Infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, emerging pathogens, and acute febrile illnesses remain leading contributors to morbidity and mortality in India. Despite progress in disease control programs, gaps in accurate and early detection persist. High costs associated with advanced diagnostic tools constrain their scalability and accessibility, particularly in rural and remote areas. This initiative aims to support innovations that materially alter the performance, cost structure, and deployment models of diagnostic and screening technologies, with a focus on affordable, scalable, and point-of-need solutions.

This RFP is open to India-based researchers only. Collaborations are strongly encouraged where opportunities exist within the scope of study to build on established partnerships.

Priority Research Areas

Priority Area 1: Tuberculosis (TB)

Proposals may address community and primary-care symptom-agnostic screening tools using non-sputum approaches, as well as diagnostic tools aligned with WHO TB diagnostic Target Product Profiles and National TB Elimination Program requirements, including true point-of-care tests that enable rapid confirmation outside centralized laboratories.

Priority Area 2: Emerging Pathogens

This area seeks rapidly reconfigurable diagnostics and modular, open-architecture platforms capable of quick adaptation for new analytes and emerging pathogens. Solutions should be equipped with integrated data systems that can automate reporting to public health monitoring and surveillance systems, supporting true point-of-care triage and screening.

Priority Area 3: Syndromic Panel

Innovations may target low-cost platforms capable of high-order multiplexing (10 or more targets), syndromic panels that support co-detection and stratify viral versus bacterial etiologies, compact low-cost multiplex assays for priority febrile illness causing pathogens, and multimodal platforms that can multiplex different assay types in a single test.

Priority Area 4: Enteric Infections

Proposals may focus on novel rapid point-of-care affordable diagnostic tests for detection of enteric pathogens including Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi and Paratyphi, resistant gene panels targeting prevalent resistance genes circulating in India, and differentiation of bacterial versus viral diarrhea.

Funding and Benefits

The programme supports a staged and diversified portfolio across maturity levels, supporting high-risk early concepts as well as mid- and late-stage adaptation via clear Technology Readiness Level criteria and a milestone-based approach anchored to rigorous performance and cost plausibility. Applicants may request funding levels commensurate with technical readiness, feasibility evidence, and a credible pathway to validation.

Eligibility

Eligible candidates include India-based researchers. Multidisciplinary team collaborations are strongly encouraged. Applications from women-led organizations and projects led by women are particularly encouraged.

Proposals are not sought for:

• Implementation, procurement, delivery, or roll-out projects without substantive research and development
• Discovery-only biomarker projects without a clear pathway to a deployable prototype within the grant period
• Incremental modifications of well-established approaches without a clearly articulated step-change in cost, scalability, or screening value
• Proposals with no plausible pathway to meet cost and operational constraints

Cross-Cutting Design Criteria

Proposals must demonstrate a credible pathway to approximately INR100 or US$1 per test, or near-zero incremental cost per person screened for devices. Additional requirements include:

• Rapid results: Actionable results during a single patient encounter
• Ease of use: Operable by minimally trained users in decentralized settings
• Robustness: Reliable function in low-resource environments including heat, dust, intermittent power, and limited infrastructure
• Cold-chain independence: Minimized or eliminated cold-chain requirements through thermostable reagents and temperature-stable device design
• Consumables minimization: Reduced reliance on disposable consumables with durable, reusable hardware architectures
• Transformative innovation: Novel architectures such as multimodal sensing, high-order multiplexing, software-defined diagnostics, AI-enabled interpretation, or software-only approaches

Additional desirable attributes include multi-disease capability, modularity to support expansion to additional analytes, and environmental sustainability through biodegradable or recyclable consumables.

Application Process and Deadline

Date Open: May 12, 2026, 1:30 am PDT

Deadline: July 1, 2026, 1:30 am PDT

Proposals must be grounded in evidence that directly supports the central idea and should present a pathway for development and later-stage adaptation and scale using clear Technology Readiness Level criteria and a milestone-based approach. Proposals should not be in the ideation phase. Further details and submission instructions are available through the Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council portal.