Yourgene Health launches Sage 32 plex test

(Sharecast News) - Molecular diagnostics group Yourgene Health announced the launch of the 'Sage 32' plex test - a high throughput non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) and analysis solution for clinical laboratories - on Tuesday.The AIM-traded firm said the Sage 32 plex used "the latest technology" to detect placental DNA in a maternal blood sample, enabling pregnant women to get fast, safe and reliable test results, and reducing the number of women needing to undergo invasive follow-up tests with associated risks.It said the solution "significantly improves" efficiency, enabling up to 32 samples to be processed in one sequencing run, compared with 12 samples previously.That would provide laboratories with enhanced flexibility, scalability and cost-effectiveness, while retaining all the high qualities of the existing Sage prenatal screen test, the Yourgene board explained.It said a combination of both workflow improvements and upgraded analysis methods had been incorporated to improve the test's overall performance and efficiency, with the addition of the new 'Yourgene QS250' instrument into the workflow.The higher throughput test ran on ThermoFisher's 'Ion Torrent' sequencing technology, and would be available internationally.Yourgene said it planned to launch a CE-IVD marked version of the library preparation kit that was used in the Sage 32 plex workflow in the coming months."This latest product launch from Yourgene is an important enhancement of our Sage solution," said Yourgene chief executive officer Lyn Rees."Many territories around the world - particularly developing NIPT markets - need the scalability and cost-efficiencies of a higher throughput NIPT solution that does not compromise on quality."With Sage 32 plex, we are almost trebling the throughput, making it a highly efficient solution for our international laboratory network which we are very excited to commercialise."