Illumina to buy Down's syndrome test maker Verinata Health in a $450 mn deal

Illumina Inc, the US gene-sequencing company that recently was the takeover target by Swiss drugmaker Roche Holdings, yesterday said that it would buy privately-held Verinata Health, in a deal worth up to $450 million, in order to expand its diagnostics business.

Illumina is offering $350 million in cash and may pay up to an additional $100 million through 2015 if certain targets are met.

Redwood City, California-based Verinata, sells verifi prenatal test that uses a blood sample from a pregnant woman to find out whether her baby will have Down syndrome, Edwards syndrome, Patau syndrome or some other chromosomal abnormalities.

The deal will give Illumina  access to not only Verinata's verifi prenatal test, but also to its vast intellectual property portfolio in the non-invasive prenatal test industry.

Compared to other testing options, the verifi prenatal test provides more definitive information than traditional protein serum screens, which calculate probabilities, and does not carry the risk of complications that an invasive procedure, such as an amniocentesis, can have, while the verifi prenatal test provides accurate aneuploidy detection, with the ability to look across the entire genome.

The San Diego-based  company said that as non-invasive prenatal testing is one of the most rapidly growing areas utilising next-generation sequencing, it will be uniquely positioned to be the leader in providing superior prenatal testing options.