This post has been updated to correct an inaccuracy that originally called the test a prenatal panel. In fact, it is a pre-pregnancy panel.
By Kirell Lakhman
Good Start Genetics plans to launch its next-gen sequencing-based pre-pregnancy screening test sometime next year, and has hired former LabCorp COO Don Hardison to run the company.
Though the Boston-based company didn't say for which disorders the test will screen, it did say it will look for those recommended by the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which includes neural tube, abdominal wall, and heart defects, as well as Trisomy 18 and 21.
Also, last May my colleague Alex Philippidis reported that the panel includes 50 genetic disorders.
Good Start said it will be performing the tests in its CLIA lab.
It wasn't immediately clear what sequencing technology the company will be using. But one clue is that Greg Porreca, who helped develop the Polonator next-gen sequencer at Harvard Medical School, left his post as director of technology for the Personal Genome Project to become Good Start's director of technology.
The company disclosed the news today as part of its announcement that it has completed an $18 million Series A round of venture-capital financing, which it said will help it finish developing the panel and launch it "starting in 2011."
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