Cancerorp Signs Exclusive Agreement with Illumina for Non-Invasive Prenatal Screening Technology Transfer

[Asia Economy Reporter Hyunseok Yoo] Cancerop, a precision medicine genomic analysis and molecular diagnostics specialist company, announced on the 26th that it has signed a priority agreement for technology transfer of the non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) kit ‘VeriSeq™ NIPT Solution v2 (hereafter VeriSeq)’ with Illumina, the world’s number one genomic analysis company.

Illumina’s VeriSeq is the only in vitro diagnostic next-generation sequencing (NGS)-based fetal DNA screening kit approved by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety in Korea. The clinical accuracy of VeriSeq was validated through the evaluation of over 2,300 plasma samples collected from singleton and twin pregnant women who underwent screening for fetal chromosomal aneuploidy and partial deletions and duplications of 7Mb (megabases) or more.

In this study, VeriSeq demonstrated very high test sensitivity (95.5%) and specificity (99.3%) for any anomaly, including general chromosomal aneuploidy. Compared to other testing methods, its low failure rate of 1.2% is expected to significantly help alleviate anxiety among prospective parents.

Lee Wang-jun, CEO of Cancerop, said, “Cancerop has led the domestic prenatal testing market by developing the ‘GenomeCheck M Plus’ test, which screens for up to 123 diseases based on approximately 400,000 clinical genomic analysis data in the field of non-invasive prenatal testing. By signing the priority technology transfer agreement for Illumina’s VeriSeq, the only in vitro diagnostic device approved domestically, we expect our competitiveness in the Korean market to be further strengthened.”

He added, “We have also decided to solidify a strategic partnership with Illumina in various clinical genomic fields such as rare diseases and degenerative diseases.”

Through this priority technology transfer agreement, Cancerop has further upgraded its non-invasive prenatal testing services ‘GenomeCheck M’ and ‘GenomeCheck M Plus.’ It plans to dramatically improve issues such as false negatives (cases where the test result is negative despite the actual presence of a condition) and increased failure rates due to insufficient data, which are problems in domestic NIPT testing, thereby providing safer and enhanced services. Additionally, it plans to supply the ‘GenomeCheck M’ service to more than ten countries in collaboration with overseas partners.

Cancerop was the first in Korea to develop various genomic testing services for prenatal and postnatal stages and has provided testing services such as ‘GenomeCheck M’ (formerly The Mom’s Scanning Test) and ‘G’ (formerly G Scanning Test) to over 450 obstetrics and gynecology and pediatrics clinics nationwide. In particular, it has performed more than 400,000 clinical genomic analyses using CMA (chromosomal microarray analysis) and NGS testing services, building the largest genomic analysis database in Korea, and has published dozens of domestic and international academic papers and filed related patents.