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TMC Fertility to offer 24sure to IVF patients in Malaysia and South East Asia

TMC Fertility Centre (TMC Fertility), Malaysia’s leading centre for assisted reproductive technology (ART), today announced it plans to offer BlueGnome’s 24sure aneuploidy screening platform to patients with a history of recurrent miscarriage or failed IVF cycles. This makes TMC Fertility the first fertility centre in Asia to offer the service, thereby cementing its position as a pioneer in advanced reproductive technology in Malaysia.

It is known that failure to establish a pregnancy is frequently a result of chromosomal aneuploidy; cells containing the wrong number of chromosomes. 24sure enables clinicians to confirm that the correct numbers of chromosomes are present before an embryo is returned to the mother thereby reducing the chance of a miscarriage and increasing the likelihood of a successful outcome.

Commenting on the announcement Dr Colin Lee, founder of TMC Fertility Centre and Managing Director of TMC Life Sciences Berhad said, “TMC Fertility has gone to great lengths to offer comprehensive fertility services at our centre. This in turn has allowed us to provide optimal treatment options to our patients and maximize their pregnancy chances. As the first and perhaps only centre in Malaysia to offer pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), we are indeed extremely proud to take this service a step further by offering the 24sure aneuploidy screening.”

He further added, “Currently, we are only able to screen seven chromosomes using an earlier technique, which relies heavily on visual inspection. 24sure will enable us to screen all 24 chromosomes in a single, automated investigation, and so provide a higher standard of care to a much broader range of patients.”

24sure is currently the subject of a two-centre clinical trial being undertaken by the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE). The independent study aims to demonstrate that this technique, which enables screening of polar bodies at an early stage of egg development, can be completed fast enough to allow for fresh embryo transfer. This will be a major step forward in improving IVF treatment for many women who have persistent difficulty in establishing and maintaining a pregnancy. The results of this study are due for publication at the ESHRE 2010 conference in Rome in June.

Dr Nick Haan, CEO of BlueGnome confirmed, “24sure is already in routine use in the UK and the United States where the initial results have been very encouraging. We expect the publication of the ESHRE study to significantly increase the number of clinics offering 24sure and are delighted to have Dr Lee and his team in Malaysia take the lead in making 24sure available in South East Asia.”

24sure is available as a complete product solution and also as a service from BlueGnome’s 24sure service centre in Cambridge, UK.