REG - Premaitha Health PLC - Premaitha signs partnership agreement in India

Yourgene HealthAnnouncement

05/06/2018 07:05

RNS Number : 2464Q
Premaitha Health PLC
05 June 2018
 


Premaitha Health plc
("Premaitha", the "Company" or the "Group")
 
Premaitha signs NIPT partnership agreement in India
 
Manchester, UK - 5 June 2018: Premaitha Health plc (AIM: NIPT), a leading international molecular diagnostics group focused on non-invasive prenatal testing ("NIPT"), announces a 3-year agreement with one of the most advanced clinical laboratory groups in India ("Partner"), to provide a bespoke, high quality and scalable NIPT solution in the Indian market.
 
Premaitha, through its Yourgene subsidiary ("Yourgene"), has entered into a partnership with one of India's leading diagnostic groups, to offer mass-population NIPT screening to their clinical network reaching over 2,000 cities and towns across India. 
 
The Group has developed a bespoke NIPT screening system for the Partner, utilising a breakthrough DNA preparation technology from Premaitha's Manchester, UK, development centre. Premaitha will supply sample and library preparation consumables to the Partner's central laboratory, and perform the NIPT analysis on the resulting sequenced DNA data in Yourgene's bioinformatics centre in Taiwan.
 
The NIPT solution has been developed to enable lower cost NIPT testing to be applied on a broader population than has been possible to date. The Partner's NIPT service is expected to be fully operational by Q4 2018 and is anticipated to draw significant sample volumes from all over India.
 
NIPT is relatively new in the Indian market but, with over 26 million births per annum, and increasing awareness of the benefits of NIPT, Premaitha expects that India will be a key growth market for the Company and that this partnership will be a catalyst for the market.
 
Dr Stephen Little, CEO of Premaitha Health, commented: "Premaitha's NIPT system for this Partner brings together our world class assay and bioinformatics capabilities in the UK and Taiwan, applies higher sample throughput technology, and delivers a bespoke solution that puts NIPT in reach of large populations requiring cost effective screening. We believe the combination of our Partner's established position in India and Premaitha's NIPT technology, presents an opportunity for material revenue growth for the Company over the contract life and beyond as test volumes ramp up to very significant levels."
 
This announcement contains inside information for the purposes of Article 7 of EU Regulation 596/2014.
 



For more information, please contact:
 








Premaitha Health PLC

Dr Stephen Little, Chief Executive Officer
Barry Hextall, Chief Financial Officer
Joanne Cross, Head of Marketing
investors@premaitha.com
 


Tel: +44 (0)161 667 1053



 




Cairn Financial Advisers LLP (NOMAD)

Liam Murray / James Caithie
 


Tel: +44 (0)20 7213 0880




finnCap (Broker)
Adrian Hargrave / Scott Mathieson (Corporate Finance)
Andrew Burdis / Abigail Wayne (Corporate Broking)
 


Tel: +44 (0)20 7220 0500




Vigo Communications
Ben Simons / Fiona Henson / Antonia Pollock
premaitha@vigocomms.com
 


Tel: +44 (0)20 7390 0237
 



 
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® 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® 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® 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® 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.
 
Since May 2018, the Group has traded 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.




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