NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Premaitha Health announced today that it has signed a deal making GeNext the exclusive distributor of its Iona non-invasive prenatal screening test in Russia.
The Iona test estimates the risk of a fetus being affected by Down syndrome and other serious genetic conditions by analyzing cell-free fetal DNA from a maternal blood sample. It received CE marking about a year ago.
Under the terms of the deal, GeNext will establish a central laboratory to act as a regional hub to process test samples. In the meantime, GeNext will send samples to Premaitha’s UK laboratory for processing.
Russia "is a new territory for Premaitha and it enables us to establish a local laboratory offering routine non-invasive prenatal screening," Premaitha CEO Stephen Little said in a statement. "The Russian market has significant potential for the Iona test, and through GeNext we are extremely well placed to accelerate market penetration across the country as awareness of the benefits of the test continues to grow."
This arrangement represents the sixth Premaitha has signed with regional partners in recent months. In February, the company signed on Visional Medical to distribute Iona in India. And in January, Premaitha announced that it had signed Iona service contracts with customers in Armenia and the Republic of Moldova.
In 2015, Adgenix became the exclusive distributor of the Iona test in France, while Antisel and Servicios Geneticos OriGen began distributing the test in Greece and Chili, respectively.