Thermo Fisher Scientific and NX Prenatal have entered into a collaboration to develop clinical mass spectrometry-based proteomics assays to monitor foetal health in utero and assess the risk of adverse outcomes, including preterm birth and preeclampsia.
This new collaboration recognises the challenges faced by medical professionals who have few tools available for noninvasive risk stratification for adverse pregnancy outcomes. By combining NX Prenatal's NeXosome platform with Thermo Fisher's liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) instrumentation, the workflows can address the reliability, accuracy and precision of the analytical solutions currently available to clinical scientists.
"Our collaboration with NX Prenatal is aiming to enable us to better evaluate maternal and foetal biomarkers during pregnancy that correlate with adverse outcomes, such as preterm birth," said Brad Hart, senior director, clinical research, chromatography and mass spectrometry, Thermo Fisher Scientific. "The co-development of a commercially available clinical mass spectrometry-based proteomics assay has the potential to provide a diagnostic solution to both clinical scientists and medical professionals offering more confidence in the evaluation of novel biomarkers that can support a safe delivery and healthy future for mother and baby."
"At NX Prenatal, we are developing novel assays and noninvasive early warning systems to detect subtle molecular changes in the maternal-fetal environment, all with the goal of improving the rate of healthy pregnancy outcomes," said Brian D. Brohman, CEO of NX Prenatal. "Our collaboration with Thermo Fisher Scientific brings together our novel NeXosome platform with their leading analytical technology with the goal of optimizing clinical mass spectrometry-based workflows, in an effort to provide the precision necessary for personalized diagnostic solutions to improve health outcomes for both mother and child."
