Natera Signatera

Natera has launched Signatera, a research-use-only circulating tumor DNA assay. Signatera consists of analyzing whole-exome sequencing data from a patient's tumor sample to design a targeted, custom-designed assay to analyze 16 or more mutations that were identified in the tumor sample. According to Natera, the assay can detect variant allele frequencies down to 0.01 percent and is optimized to achieve high specificity by requiring detection of multiple mutations for a ctDNA-positive call, leading to fewer false positives.