LifeCodexx, a European noninvasive prenatal testing provider, and the department of obstetrics of the German teaching hospital Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin have joined forces to accelerate development of a novel genetics-based assay to detect pre-eclampsia in its early stages. This collaboration builds on an ongoing research partnership between LifeCodexx and University Hospital Wuerzberg in Germany, which recently conducted a clinical proof-of-principle study with LifeCodexx’s proprietary quantitative polymerase chain reaction-based assay for pre-eclampsia. The study demonstrated that LifeCodexx’s test accurately distinguishes between patients with pre-eclampsia and nonaffected patients, according to the company. In the new partnership with Charité, LifeCodexx aims to further develop this test to predict pre-eclampsia at an early stage of pregnancy.

“A rapid noninvasive test that accurately predicts pre-eclampsia early in pregnancy will address a significant unmet medical need by identifying women at risk for the disease,” said Stefan Verlohren, MD, PhD, consultant at the department of obstetrics and head of the pre-eclampsia research group at Charité. “A reliable early molecular genetic test would be a big step forward in better predicting the disorder, potentially reducing maternal and fetal morbidity and mortality.”