SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sequenom, Inc. (NASDAQ:SQNM), announced that breakthrough data from a collaborative project with The Chinese University of Hong Kong, supporting the noninvasive prenatal diagnosis of monogenic diseases, were published online today in the Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Monogenic diseases, which include cystic fibrosis, ß-thalassemia and sickle cell anemia, could only be definitively diagnosed prenatally through invasive procedures following extensive carrier screening testing on both parents. In the United States, cystic fibrosis screening is recommended for all women of child bearing age (over 10 million individuals in the U.S. are carriers of the CF mutated gene, including one in every 29 Caucasian Americans) and in certain regions of the world, ß-thalassemia affects anywhere from three to 16 percent of the population. Sequenom holds exclusive rights to this breakthrough technology representing a new approach that could potentially eliminate the need for paternal testing and significantly reduce the use of invasive tests.
