Campbell, Ca., August 6, 2008 - Hunter Labs enters into Biological Processing Agreement with Sequenom, Inc.

Hunter Laboratories, Inc., announced today that it has entered into an Agreement with Sequenom (San Diego, CA) to assist Sequenom in developing a new maternal blood marker to better identify pregnancies that have a child with a chromosome abnormality such as Down syndrome. Such a successful test may reduce the need for invasive procedures such as amniocenteses and CVS. Hunter will collect and process specimens from local medical practices in accordance with Sequenom’s methodologies. The specimens will then be sent to Sequenom for clinical testing. Hunter’s CEO, Chris Riedel, commented that Hunter Labs was selected by Sequenom because of the company’s sophistication in handling samples for DNA and RNA testing. 

Sequenom’s development efforts with the SEQureDX Technology may provide a potentially practice changing approach to prenatal screening for Down syndrome. The key attributes of the Sequenom test are that it is a Direct test vs. a Surrogate test, can be performed in either the 1st or 2nd trimester of pregnancy, is highly sensitive, has a very low false-positive rate, does not suffer from error caused by inaccurate determination of gestational age, and yields a straight-forward “yes/no” answer instead of a risk-score (e.g. high-risk vs. low-risk).

Mr. Riedel stated that Hunter was very excited about the prospects for this test and is pleased to support Sequenom in its development.