Sequenom Labs Announces Significant Enhancement To MaterniT GENOME

(RTTNews) - Sequenom Inc. (SQNM) announced a significant performance enhancement to the MaterniT GENOME laboratory-developed test and will present new data at the 20th International Conference on Prenatal Diagnosis and Therapy, July 10-13, 2016, in Berlin, Germany.

"MaterniT GENOME is a best-in-class noninvasive prenatal test (NIPT) that identifies nearly 1 in 3 positive findings that may not have been detected with standard NIPTs that only analyze major chromosomal abnormalities such as trisomies 21, 18, 13 and sex chromosome aneuploidies," said Dirk van den Boom, PhD, President and CEO of Sequenom.

Approximately 30% of the positive findings for MaterniT GENOME are detected due to its genome-wide coverage while other cell-free DNA-based NIPTs typically only analyze select chromosomes. Other cell-free DNA-based NIPT on the market would have missed these chromosomal abnormalities, potentially creating false reassurance of an unaffected pregnancy. The broad and deep analysis of this test, coupled with industry-leading sensitivity and specificity, makes MaterniT GENOME the most comprehensive NIPT on the market.