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BoneMarrowTest.com is the first web site established to assist
patients needing bone marrow transplants in accessing private donor testing.
It also represents the first of a series of genetic diversity web sites that
Orchid intends to establish as part of its web-based "direct-to-marketplace"
GeneShield initiative.
Bone marrow transplants are a potentially life saving treatment needed by
an estimated 30,000 children and adults in the U.S. each year who are battling
leukemia, other cancers and a number of rare blood disorders. Successful bone
marrow transplants require the donor and recipient to be a good match on
several key genetic diversity parameters, known as human leukocyte antigens,
or HLA. GeneScreen has provided HLA testing for prospective donors and
associated support services for patients since 1994 at its facilities located
in Dayton, Ohio and Dallas, Texas. The new web site is using the power of the
Internet to strengthen those services to increase the availability of private
HLA testing for potential donors.
"Orchid intends to empower patients in
their search for a suitable donor for a potentially life-saving transplant."
"Orchid is proud to sponsor the first web site designed to facilitate
private bone marrow testing and provide an national listing of donor drives,"
said Dale Pfost, Ph.D., chairman, president and chief executive officer of
Orchid. "By leveraging the Internet, Orchid intends to empower patients in
their search for a suitable donor for a potentially life-saving transplant.
BoneMarrowTest.com is also the first embodiment of our direct-to-marketplace
GeneShield initiative. We are planning a phased roll-out of targeted
GeneShield web sites offering genetic diversity testing and information to
health care professionals and patients."
Since HLA types are inherited from both parents, siblings and other close
relatives are candidates for providing a good donor match. The National
Marrow Donor Program(R) (NMDP(R)) estimates that approximately 30 percent of
patients needing a bone marrow transplant will find a matched donor within
their own immediate family. Extended family testing is the next step for many
patients, including use of genealogy resources to access a larger group of
family members for testing. If no family-based match is found, public and
private registries run the patient's HLA type against their databases to find
a non-related match.
Another alternative available to patients seeking a transplant is to turn
to prospective donors in their communities and workplaces. GeneScreen's
BoneMarrowTest.com provides valuable resources for these patients, such as
enabling families, donor centers and registries to post regional and national
donor drives on its web site and alerting prospective donors via e-mail of
upcoming testing drives in their regions. The web site offers a "send a
friend" e-mail feature so that posted drives can easily be referred to others.
Orchid's GeneScreen business offers online ordering of HLA testing kits
for extended family and community donor testing and access to sample
collection services. The patient samples are collected by health care
professionals and returned to GeneScreen's CLIA approved laboratories for
analysis. Results are sent to both the prospective donors and any health
providers or transplant programs they designate.
"GeneScreen is delighted to launch BoneMarrowTest.com, our web site
designed to enable extended family members and others in the community to
obtain private HLA testing quickly and cost effectively, without a requirement
to join a transplant registry," said Keith Brown, vice president and general
manager at GeneScreen's headquarters in Dallas, Texas. "BoneMarrowTest.com is
the first of a series of DNA and genetic diversity web initiatives that Orchid
plans to sponsor."
Through BoneMarrowTest.com, patients can access GeneScreen's support
services for assistance in organizing family and community-based donor drives
and in obtaining funding for testing. In addition, the web site has contact
information for other bone marrow transplant resources, including the NMDP(R),
major national and international independent donor registries like the Caitlin
Raymond International Registry, and genealogy web sites.
Orchid BioSciences, Inc. is a leading provider of products, services and
technologies for Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) scoring and genetic
diversity analyses. Orchid has developed SNP-IT(TM), its proprietary SNP
analysis technology, and markets SNPstream(TM) instruments and SNPware(TM)
consumables that rapidly generate highly accurate, cost effective SNP
information. SNP-IT is usable in environments ranging from small-scale
laboratories to large commercial facilities. Its versatility also enables
Orchid to partner with industry leaders to make SNP-IT-enabled products
available on a wide variety of instrument platforms. Orchid also provides
high throughput SNP scoring services to pharmaceutical, agricultural and
academic customers through its MegaSNPatron(TM) facility, and DNA testing
through its GeneScreen facilities that conduct paternity, forensics and
transplantation testing. Through its Pharmaceutical Value Creation strategy,
Orchid also seeks to identify proprietary medical applications of SNPs.
Source: Orchid BioSciences Inc.
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