Myriad Genetics, Salt Lake City, has launched its proprietary Amplify technology, which further increases the performance of its Prequel noninvasive prenatal screening (NIPS) test. The Amplify process increases the fetal fraction of a NIPS sample by preferentially sequencing the fetal cell-free DNA fragments that circulate in a mother’s blood. Amplify technology enables more accurate detection of fetal chromosome abnormalities. In the analytical validation involving samples from more than 1,000 pregnant women, fetal fraction is 2.3 times greater on average with Amplify than with standard NIPS. This improvement reduces false positive and false negative results—including for common aneuploidies, expanded aneuploidies, microdeletions, and a baby’s sex. For instance, false negative performance in common aneuploidies improves 45 times with Amplify technology. Additionally, no samples powered by Amplify technology had a fetal fraction below 4%. Other laboratories may fail samples with less than 4% fetal fraction. “Prequel already provided highly accurate results and this proprietary technology further increases the sensitivity of our test,” says Nicole Lambert, president of Myriad International, Oncology and Women’s Health. “With Amplify, Prequel maintains an industry-leading low rate of failed samples—delivering results to 99.9% of patients. The important clinical benefits are that each woman who receives the test can expect highly accurate NIPS results, regardless of body mass index (BMI), race, or ethnicity.” For more information, visit Myriad.