ARUP Laboratories has entered into an agreement with a California company to significantly expand its offerings of genetic prescreening tests for prospective parents. The deal between South San Francisco, Calif.-based Counsyl and the Salt Lake City-based ARUP will introduce scores of new tests on the latter’s panel for inherited genetic disorders. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. “We’re energized about working with ARUP to make carrier screening a routine part of family planning across the country,” said Ramji Srinivasan, Counsyl’s chief executive officer. Counsyl, which was founded by Stanford University students in 2007, offers low-cost screening for genetic diseases such as Tay-Sachs, Canavan, cystic fibrosis, and sickle-cell anemia. Its universal genetic test can screen parents for the risk of passing more than 100 genetic disorders on to their children. The saliva-based test costs about $350 per person. The company recommends usage of the tests for both parents planning a family with or without in vitro fertilization. Counsyl’s testing technology is a variant of the DNA testing offered by low-cost mail-order companies such as 23andMe, but tuned to focus on genetic diseases. Although such disorders are relatively rare, many children born with such disorders face significantly shorter life spans and […]
ARUP Laboratories has entered into an agreement with a California company to significantly expand its offerings of genetic prescreening tests for prospective parents.
The deal between South San Francisco, Calif.-based Counsyl and the Salt Lake City-based ARUP will introduce scores of new tests on the latter’s panel for inherited genetic disorders. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
“We’re energized about working with ARUP to make carrier screening a routine part of family planning across the country,” said Ramji Srinivasan, Counsyl’s chief executive officer.
Counsyl, which was founded by Stanford University students in 2007, offers low-cost screening for genetic diseases such as Tay-Sachs, Canavan, cystic fibrosis, and sickle-cell anemia. Its universal genetic test can screen parents for the risk of passing more than 100 genetic disorders on to their children. The saliva-based test costs about $350 per person. The company recommends usage of the tests for both parents planning a family with or without in vitro fertilization.
Counsyl’s testing technology is a variant of the DNA testing offered by low-cost mail-order companies such as 23andMe, but tuned to focus on genetic diseases. Although such disorders are relatively rare, many children born with such disorders face significantly shorter life spans and often are mentally and physically limited.
The company’s medical advisers include faculty members from Harvard University, Stanford University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Jessica Jacobson, M.D., director of the special hematology laboratory at Bellevue Hospital in New York.
“We are pleased that the relationship with Counsyl now allows ARUP to offer testing for over 100 recessive genetic disorders to more than half of the nation’s university, teaching, and children’s hospitals,” said Sherrie Perkins, M.D., ARUP’s chief medical officer.
