Emerging Products Provide Opportunity in Prenatal Diagnostics

The recent increase in opportunity has been revealed in the latest study of women’s health diagnostics by Kalorama Information’s (New York, NY, USA), which has reported extensively on prenatal testing markets for over a decade.

According to the Kalorama report, “Women’s Health Diagnostics Market,” prenatal cytogenetic testing represents an important source of clinical market growth for technologies such as sequencing, microarrays, biomarker immunoassays, and mass spectrometry—technologies found with traditional karyotyping and in situ hybridization in a multibillion prenatal cytogenetics testing market.

“Family planning and coordination of care for a child born with health conditions are increasingly relevant issues,” said Emil Salazar, analyst for Kalorama Information, “While ethical considerations will arise with further market development, prenatal, postnatal, and maternal testing are viable promising cytogenetic screening methods that have seen ready acceptance from many insurers in at-risk populations where the prevalence of genetic disorders (especially chromosomal) justify coverage.”

The report also describes successes of several competitors in the field, including PerkinElmer, Verinata (owned by Illumina), Sequenom, Ariosa Diagnostics, CombiMatrix, Agilent, Affymetrix, among others.

“Companies offering sequencing- and array-based noninvasive prenatal testing (NIPT) services estimate the current addressable market at over USD 1 billion,” said Salazar, “Remaining market development will include insurers’ assessment of the risk threshold for expectant mothers that will permit reimbursement for various NIPT services.” Those services include basic screening, wider genomic screening, reflex testing, and confirmation. Some tests, such as Ariosa Diagnostics’ Harmony test, will also permit further investigation into the efficacy and economy of platforms such as sequencing and microarrays.

Ultimately, prenatal testing represents a very probable continued growth opportunity for the multiple technologies of sequencing, microarrays, and mass spectrometry still emerging in various diagnostic applications.

Kalorama’s report contains additional information about opportunities in the prenatal and other women’s health related testing sectors.

Related Links:
Kalorama Information
Women’s Health Diagnostics Markets, report