St. George's University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which has been offering NIPT since last year, plans to double its capacity by the third quarter.
Only about 5 to 6 percent of women in China, mostly in urban areas, currently obtain NIPT, but their number is expected to increase quickly in coming years.
Thermo will invest £5 million in Premaitha as a secured loan facility, of which the firm will receive £3 million initially and the remainder as milestone payments.
Under the agreement, OriGen will send maternal blood samples to Premaitha's clinical laboratory in the UK, which will analyze them using the firm's Iona test.
The initiative aims to educate patients and healthcare providers about the benefits and limitations of NIPT screening and how to interpret the results.
An international commission is to develop a report on how researchers, clinicians, and regulators should evaluate the clinical applications of human germline genome editing.
In Genome Research this week: repetitive element deletion linked to altered methylation and more in form of muscular dystrophy; human contamination in draft bacterial and archaeal genomes; and more.
