Ariosa Diagnostics and Sonic Germany Laboratories Announce New Partnership to Offer Pregnant Women the Harmony™ Prenatal Test in Germany

BERLIN, Dec. 5, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Ariosa Diagnostics, maker of the Harmony™ Prenatal Test, has initiated a collaboration with a global leader in medical diagnostic services, Sonic Healthcare Limited (SHL.AX). The partnership further expands the availability of the Harmony test in Germany following the earlier collaboration of Ariosa Diagnostics with Sonic Healthcare´s London, UK, subsidiary, The Doctors Laboratory (TDL). Harmony is one of the most affordable non-invasive prenatal tests available, and provides a safe and accurate testing option for pregnant women.

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Sonic Healthcare Germany, a subsidiary of Sonic Healthcare Limited, provides highly advanced laboratory testing services to medical practitioners, hospitals and their collective patients throughout the country of 81 million citizens. With an annual pregnancy rate of over 771,000, the offering of the Harmony test by Sonic Healthcare Germany expands the opportunity for more women to seek the latest advancement in reliable risk assessment for fetal trisomy conditions, such as Down syndrome.  

Sonic Healthcare Germany will offer the Harmony test through its national network of specialist laboratories and will co-ordinate the launch via its Bioscientia Center for Human Genetics in Ingelheim near Frankfurt.

Peer-reviewed and published clinical data involving over 6,000 pregnant women from around the world have demonstrated that the Harmony test has greater than 99% accuracy for assessing Down syndrome risk.  Compared to conventional screening methods (e.g. serum screening), the Harmony test has a lower false positive rate by up to 50-fold, thereby reducing the potential of creating unnecessary anxiety through invasive procedures (i.e. amniocentesis) for pregnant women.

Evangelos Kotsopoulos, CEO of Sonic Healthcare Germany, said, "The addition of the Harmony test to our well-established offering of prenatal tests is an exciting step at the right time. We are confident that physicians and their patients will appreciate its availability."

Todd Whitson, VP of Commercial Operations and Sales, of Ariosa Diagnostics, said, "Through this new partnership with Sonic Germany, in addition to our existing partnerships, we believe that the Harmony Prenatal Test is well positioned to be a premiere cell-free DNA test in Germany.  Sonic Healthcare has a tremendous reputation in the healthcare field throughout the world, and we feel fortunate to call them a partner."

About Ariosa Diagnostics

Ariosa Diagnostics, Inc. is a molecular diagnostics company committed to innovating together to improve patient care. The flagship product, the Harmony^™ Prenatal Test, is a safe, highly accurate and affordable prenatal test for maternal and fetal health. Led by an experienced team, Ariosa is using its proprietary technology to perform a directed analysis of cell-free DNA in blood. The Harmony^™ Prenatal Test equips pregnant women and their healthcare providers with reliable information to make decisions regarding their health, without creating unnecessary stress or anxiety.

The company began operations in 2010 and is headquartered in San Jose, Calif. For more information, visit www.ariosadx.com. Follow us on Twitter @HarmonyPrenatal and on Facebook at Harmony Prenatal for Healthy Pregnancy.

About Sonic Healthcare

Sonic Healthcare is an international medical diagnostics company, offering extensive laboratory medicine/pathology and radiology services to the medical community. With 26,000 employees around the world, Sonic Healthcare is recognized for quality and service excellence, innovative technology, commitment to staff and continuing financial strength. Sonic Healthcare is represented in Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Ireland and the USA. The global head office of Sonic Healthcare is in Sydney, Australia. For more information, please visit: http://www.sonichealthcare.com

Communications inquiries:

Ariosa Diagnostics, Inc.
Jennifer Bruursema
[email protected] 
+1 (202) 316 4553

Sonic Healthcare Germany GmbH & Co. KG
Evangelos Kotsopoulos
[email protected]
+49 (30) 2063 3950

SOURCE Ariosa Diagnostics