The ongoing COVID-19 crisis has alarmed the government, scientific community and healthcare segment to develop domestic technological capabilities to deal with the severe consequences of the contagious disease in India. In this study, an attempt is made to present the characteristics of an ecosystem for the successful development of indigenous diagnostic technology, called ‘TrueNat’, which have dealt the context-specific challenges associated with Tuberculosis (TB) diagnostics and has been validated by the Indian Council of Medical Research for addressing the specific challenges related to COVID-19 testing. Using the functional characteristics of the Innovation System approach, we examined different facets of the system-building activities of various actors involved in the formation of “TrueNat Innovation System” for the diagnosis of Tuberculosis and COVID-19. The development of innovation system for TrueNat reveals that once the system building activities are oriented towards non-market based social calculation, a self-reliant responsible innovation system is formed for dealing with the specific health care needs of the country. The study argues that the experience of “TrueNat technological innovation system” has set a successful pathway for building future indigenous technological development for the medical diagnostic sector in India.
