Congratulations: Quest Diagnostics to offer access to Natera’s Panorama, non-invasive prenatal test

Ted Driscoll

natera-logoCongratulations to Natera—our portfolio company who is the leading innovator in prenatal genetic testing! Yesterday they announced a major deal with Quest Diagnostics (NYSE: DGX), the world's leading diagnostic information services company. Quest Diagnostics will offer physicians access to Panorama™, the new non-invasive prenatal test developed by Natera. (Read the Quest Press Release)

Panorama uses free-floating fetal DNA in circulating maternal blood to screen for chromosomal abnormalities associated with trisomy 21 (Down syndrome), trisomy 18 (Edwards syndrome), trisomy 13 (Patau syndrome) and monosomy X (Turner syndrome). Panorama LogoPanorama can be used as early as the ninth week of pregnancy. Panorama is a non-invasive screening test that provides early information for assessing pregnancy risks. A ‘low risk' Panorama test result indicates a lower likelihood that a pregnancy is affected. With this information, a woman may consider, in consultation with her physician and results of other medical assessments, whether to pursue or forgo invasive diagnostic testing such as amniocentesis, which carries a slight risk of miscarriage.

I believe Natera has the opportunity to dominate the non-invasive prenatal testing space and change the way people manage pregnancy and respond to genetic risks the world around. All of us at Claremont Creek Ventures are really excited about this new partnership with Quest and Natera.