8 January 2016 - Update on competitor patent litigation
Manchester, UK – 8 January 2016 – Premaitha Health PLC (AIM: NIPT, “Premaitha” or the “Company”), developer of the IONA® test, the first CE-marked non-invasive prenatal (NIPT) in vitro diagnostic kit, notes that Illumina, Inc. has today announced two patent infringement suits in Europe, one of which is against Premaitha’s customer in Poland. Illumina has also today taken similar action against Ariosa Diagnostics, a subsidiary of Roche, and their customer, The Doctors Laboratory, in the UK.
Premaitha continues to make a robust defence against earlier claims by Illumina and the Board is confident that the IONA® test does not infringe the patents as claimed in the earlier cases or in relation to today’s announcement.
Dr Stephen Little, CEO of Premaitha said: “These lawsuits are a continuation of attempts by Illumina to restrict competition in the European NIPT market. We believe pregnant women should not be denied choice in their decisions for prenatal care. Despite these distractions, we have made strong progress with our best-in-class IONA® test. We will support our customers against such actions and we look forward to announcing new contract wins in new international territories in the near future.”
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