NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Reprogenetics has opened a new facility in Miami to better serve existing customers and gain new clients in the southeastern US.
The Livingston, NJ-based genetics laboratory, which uses array comparative genomic hybridization for the majority of its pre-implantation genetic screening services, currently maintains other US sites in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Portland, Ore., in addition to offices in Japan, Peru, Spain, and the UK.
"Our Reprogenetics Miami facility will offer all tests and technologies – karyomapping, next-generation sequencing and array CGH, although only array CGH will be offered on fresh samples," Santiago Munné, founder and director of Reprogenetics, told BioArray News in an email. He added that the firm aims to serve its current clients faster while attracting new customers through the new lab.
According to Munné, Reprogenetics' Miami facility will focus specifically on chromosome testing to identify embryo abnormalities. The firm has tapped Renata Prates, a pre-implantation genetic diagnostics specialist from its Livingston headquarters, to lead the new lab.
Munné said in a recent interview that the company uses Illumina BlueGnome 24sure arrays to screen 95 percent of the 7,000 cases it screens annually as part of its services. However, the company plans in the next few years to introduce a next-generation sequencing-based protocol for the diagnosis of aneuploidy in cells from human embryos prior to implantation as part of an in vitro fertilization cycle, and to move some of its array-based testing over to NGS.