Premaitha Health PLC DNA sequencing technology development agreement (8433Q)

TIDMNIPT

RNS Number : 8433Q

Premaitha Health PLC

11 June 2018

Premaitha Health plc

("Premaitha" or the "Company")

Partnership agreement for DNA sequencing technology development

Manchester, UK - 11 June 2018: Premaitha Health plc (AIM: NIPT), a leading international molecular diagnostics group, announces that it has signed an agreement with Coastal Genomics, a biotechnology engineering firm based in Vancouver, Canada, to develop advanced technologies for clinical DNA sequencing tests.

Coastal Genomics develops and markets automated solutions to address sample preparation needs across the medical diagnostics sector. Under the agreement, Coastal Genomics will work with Premaitha to develop customised advanced technologies to enhance aspects of Premaitha Health's in vitro diagnostic product portfolio. The technologies being developed will be best in class and will work across different applications, including but not limited to reproductive health.

Dr Stephen Little, CEO of Premaitha, commented: "In partnering with Coastal Genomics, we see a real opportunity to introduce improved processes which will optimise our existing workflow, reduce cost and improve overall efficiency of the screening process for our customers. Coastal Genomics have significant expertise in this field and we look forward to working together to develop this market leading technology."

Matthew Nesbitt, President of Coastal Genomics, said: "We are thrilled to be working closely with Premaitha. As a leading molecular diagnostics company, Premaitha has invaluable insight into the demands and requirements of our technology and we look forward to leveraging this expertise to deliver a customised solution for Premaitha that can be widely deployed for DNA sequencing."

 
For more information, please contact: 
Premaitha Health PLC                                Tel: +44 (0)161 
 Dr Stephen Little, Chief Executive Officer          667 1053 
 Barry Hextall, Chief Financial Officer 
 Joanne Cross, Head of Marketing 
 [e-mail] 
Cairn Financial Advisers LLP (NOMAD)                Tel: [phone] 
 Liam Murray / James Caithie                         0880 
finnCap (Broker)                                    Tel: [phone] 
 Adrian Hargrave / Scott Mathieson (Corporate        0500 
 Finance) 
 Andrew Burdis / Abigail Wayne (Corporate Broking) 
Vigo Communications                                 Tel: [phone] 
 Ben Simons / Fiona Henson / Antonia Pollock         0237 
 [e-mail] 
 

About Premaitha

Premaitha is an international molecular diagnostics group which uses the latest advances in DNA analysis technology to develop safer, faster and regulatory approved genetic screening tests.

The Group's current primary focus is on non-invasive prenatal tests (NIPT) for pregnant women - an emerging, multi-billion dollar global market - although the Group intends to expand its product range into other areas of clinical genetics.

Premaitha's first product, the IONA(R) test was launched in 2015 as the first CE-IVD NIPT test in Europe. It enables laboratories and healthcare practitioners to offer a complete CE-marked NIPT system in-house. The IONA(R) test is performed on a maternal blood sample - which contains traces of fetal DNA - and estimates the risk of a fetus being affected with Down's syndrome or other genetic conditions.

Unlike existing prenatal screening methods, due to its high level of accuracy, the IONA(R) test can significantly reduce the number of women subjected to unnecessary invasive follow up diagnostic procedures, such as amniocentesis, which are costly, resource intensive and carry a risk of miscarriage.

In March 2017, Premaitha acquired Yourgene Bioscience, a specialist next generation sequencing and bioinformatics company based in Taiwan, with its own NIPT screening solution that operates on the same Thermo Fisher next-generation sequencing platform as Premaitha's IONA(R) test. Yourgene brings significant benefits to the Group through expanded market access in Asia - the world's fastest growing NIPT market - as well as opportunities for cross-selling and the ability to jointly develop expanded test content both within NIPT and beyond.

From May 2018, the Group will trade as Yourgene Health outside of Europe (but remaining as Yourgene Bioscience in Taiwan) reflecting the increased scope of the business in other areas of clinical genetics further to reproductive health; but will maintain the Premaitha Health brand within Europe.

Premaitha is headquartered in Manchester, England, with Yourgene offices in Taipei and Singapore. Its shares trade on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange (AIM: NIPT). For further information, please visit www.premaitha.com. Follow us on twitter @PremaithaHealth.

About Coastal Genomics

The "Why" behind Coastal Genomics is that good science should not hinge on the fickle nature of manual bench science. This is a shared perspective as evidenced by the continued move to automate life science protocols. Techniques that compromise on result quality in exchange for automatability can be a viable option for some workflows. Inevitably though, the demands of new applications that are high value and high throughput in nature come to require high quality input that can only be delivered by golden standard bench techniques. Please visit our website at www.coastalgenomics.com to learn more about how we help secure quality sample preparation.

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June 11, 2018 02:00 ET (06:00 GMT)