Market domination seen

Gene Marcial, who writes the Inside Wall Street column for Business Week, says Sequenom Inc.’s  first trimester prenatal screen for Down syndrome could help it dominate a market with multibillion-dollar potential and transform medical diagnostics.

The company anticipates a commercial launch for the screen in the second quarter of 2009. After announcing the test, the company’s stock price has gone up from 5 in April to 21 by August 15.

Marcial quotes an an investment analyst as saying that the Sequenom test identified all Down syndrome samples with “no false positives.” An excerpt:

Sequenom CEO Harry Stylli says the SEQureDX test provides 99% accuracy in “sensitivity and specificity.” In the U.S. alone, he says, where there are six million pregnancies each year, the potential market for Sequenom’s test runs to about $1.5 billion to $3 billion. Worldwide, the potential could be up to $6 billion to $8 billion, he adds.

Peter Kolchinsky of RA Capital Management, which owns a 10% stake in Sequenom, says the test’s value is enormous because the magnitude of the difference in accuracy when compared with existing tests “is so large.” He considers it the Holy Grail to obstetricians who have been seeking a precise and noninvasive screening for Down Syndrome.

(Graphic from Business Week)

This entry was posted on Monday, August 18th, 2008 at 12:10 am and is filed under NOT2BEMISSED, abortion, business, prenatal diagnosis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.  Email This Post