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Ariosa Inks German Alliance with Sonic Healthcare

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Ariosa Diagnostics today said that it has inked a deal with a subsidiary of Sonic Healthcare to offer the firm's Harmony Prenatal Test in Germany.

Sonic Healthcare Germany provides lab testing services throughout the country, which has more than 771,000 pregnancies per year. The firm will offer Ariosa's test through its national network of specialist labs and coordinate the launch through its Bioscientia Center for Human Genetics in Ingelheim.

Financial and other terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Ariosa's Harmony test analyzes cell-free DNA circulating in maternal blood in order to detect fetal trisomies.

"Through this new partnership with Sonic Germany, in addition to our existing partnerships, we believe that the Harmony Prenatal Test is well positioned to be a premiere cell-free DNA test in Germany," Todd Whitson, Ariosa's VP of commercial operations and sales, said in a statement.

The agreement with Sonic Healthcare Germany follows an agreement inked earlier this year with Sonic's UK subsidiary, The Doctors Laboratory. Under that deal, The Doctors Laboratory is distributing the Harmony test in the UK.

According to Clinical Sequencing News, San Jose, Calif.-based Ariosa tested more than 40,000 pregnant women with its sequencing-based Harmony test in the third quarter of 2013 and over 150,000 women since its commercial launch last year. The firm also recently said that it has since expanded into 50 countries across six continents.

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