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In Brief This Week: Yourgene Health, Illumina, Delfi Dx, Enzo Biochem, Revvity, Talis Biomedical

NEW YORK – Yourgene Health said this week that it has signed a five-year contract extension with Illumina, which includes a restated license and supply agreement for Yourgene's sequencing-based noninvasive prenatal testing IVD products. The extended contract will run until September 2028. Yourgene is in the midst of being acquired by Novacyt, a deal that is expected to close in the third quarter. 


Delfi Diagnostics said this week that it has exclusively licensed a method for identifying somatic genomic alterations in cell-free DNA called GEMINI (Genome-wide mutational incidence for noninvasive detection of cancer) from Johns Hopkins University. In a recent study, Hopkins researchers and their colleagues showed that a combination of GEMINI with Delfi's fragmentomics approach worked well for identifying early-stage lung cancers.


Enzo Biochem has completed the sale of its clinical laboratory division to Laboratory Corporation of America for $113.3 million in cash. The final purchase price is well below the $146 million expected when the firms signed the agreement in March. The sale is part of Enzo's restructuring initiative launched in 2022 to focus on its life science segment, which sells products and services for drug discovery and research applications. 


Revvity's board of directors has declared a quarterly dividend of $.07 per common share payable on Nov. 10, 2023 to shareholders of record as of the close of the market on Oct. 20, 2023. 


Talis Biomedical said this week that it received notice from the Nasdaq on July 20 that it has regained compliance with the minimum bid price requirement of at least $1.00 per share. To regain compliance, the company's common stock was required to maintain a closing bid price of at least $1.00 per share for a minimum of 10 consecutive business days, which the company satisfied on July 19. The notice follows the company's 1-for-15 reverse stock split approved by stockholders on June 9. 


In Brief This Week is a selection of news items that may be of interest to our readers but had not previously appeared on GenomeWeb. 

The Scan

Positive Framing of Genetic Studies Can Spark Mistrust Among Underrepresented Groups

Researchers in Human Genetics and Genomics Advances report that how researchers describe genomic studies may alienate potential participants.

Small Study of Gene Editing to Treat Sickle Cell Disease

In a Novartis-sponsored study in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers found that a CRISPR-Cas9-based treatment targeting promoters of genes encoding fetal hemoglobin could reduce disease symptoms.

Gut Microbiome Changes Appear in Infants Before They Develop Eczema, Study Finds

Researchers report in mSystems that infants experienced an enrichment in Clostridium sensu stricto 1 and Finegoldia and a depletion of Bacteroides before developing eczema.

Acute Myeloid Leukemia Treatment Specificity Enhanced With Stem Cell Editing

A study in Nature suggests epitope editing in donor stem cells prior to bone marrow transplants can stave off toxicity when targeting acute myeloid leukemia with immunotherapy.