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Natera, Unilabs Ink NIPT Technology Transfer Deal

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – European clinical testing laboratory Unilabs has licensed Natera's noninvasive prenatal testing technology as part of Natera's technology transfer program, Constellation, the companies said today.

The licensing agreement enables Unilabs to develop, validate, and run Natera's NIPT test out of its own laboratory and grants the company access to Natera's proprietary protocols, CE-marked reagents, and algorithms within the Constellation software platform. Unilabs is headquartered in Switzerland, but has locations throughout Europe as well as the United Arab Emirates and Peru.

Constellation is a cloud-based software program that Natera launched in 2015 to enable laboratories that use its proprietary algorithms to run the Panorama NIPT locally. LifeLabs Medical Laboratory Services in Toronto, Inida's MedGenome, and Swiss prenatal diagnostic lab Genetica are among the laboratories to use Constellation to run Panorama.

"This agreement with Natera reinforces our commitment to providing people with the best solutions that help give care," Pierre Alain Menoud, head of molecular diagnostics at Unilabs, said in a statement. He added that the licensing agreement could be the first step toward "further collaboration between the two companies down the road."

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