Bengaluru-based Leucine Rich Bio has commenced exports of its do-it-yourself gut microbiome test, called BugSpeaks, to the Philippines. The Philippines is the second country after Thailand where BugSpeaks is available through a local distributor, Cognoa International. “We are looking to expand to other Asian countries soon. We are seeking partnerships with distributors for this,” Debojyoti Dhar, director & co-founder, Leucine Rich Bio, told FE.
In India, the BugSpeaks test is priced at Rs 9,999 and is available on major e-commerce platforms such as 1MG and Amazon in addition to the BugSpeaks website.
Simply put, the microbiome is the collection of the microscopic living beings that our body harbours. BugSpeaks is a non-invasive test to dig deep into the microbial ecosystem of the gut, using stool as the sample. The report gives a snapshot of gut health using a proprietary and patent pending developed score called the Rych index; it provides disease susceptibility index for as many as 15 diseases (including type 2 diabetes and obesity). Many diseases such as type 2 diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) have been linked to the imbalance of the gut microbiota.
“The personalised nutritional recommendations provided in the BugSpeaks report help the end users to balance the gut microbiota, thereby improving overall health and wellness,” Dhar said.
Till date, the company has served more than 7,000 customers. The idea behind BugSpeaks is to make consumers understand and utilise the complex interplay of the microbes in the gut for holistic well-being in a lucid and actionable manner. The science of the gut microbiota impacting health and wellness is old but the technology to assess its role is new.
“There are many players in this field, but they profile only gut bacteria; our BugSpeaks test makes use of shotgun metagenomics sequencing which profiles all microbes (not just the bacteria). We use special algorithms that we have developed, and our test results are based on one of the largest collections of gut microorganism data in the world,” Dhar revealed.
The Indian human microbiome market stood at $139.1 million in 2021 and is projected to surpass $282 million by 2031. The global scenario is equally promising as the market is poised to reach $552.92 billion by 2031.
