William Blair launched coverage of Sera Prognostics (NASDAQ:SERA), a pregnancy diagnostics company, with an “outperform” rating. The stock closed at $12.85 on Aug. 6.
Analyst Brian Weinstein writes that the current rate of preterm birth (PTB), defined as birth before 37 weeks of gestation, in the U.S. is roughly 10% and increasing, in part because of a lack of appropriate diagnostics to identify at-risk pregnancies.
Sera’s PreTRM test, which detects four times more PTBs than traditional clinical methods, is the only commercially available blood-based test to predict the risk of spontaneous singleton PTBs, Mr. Weinstein said.
He said recent studies have shown clinical benefits from the testing and impressive cost-savings potential, highlighted by a recent Anthem study that demonstrated $1,608 in gross savings per pregnant woman tested.
“While Sera is a single-product company today, its technology underpins an intriguing pipeline of potentially meaningful and economically impactful products that address other major conditions of pregnancy,” he added. Some 25% of the world’s 140 million annual births are affected by complications, and “Sera’s product pipeline addresses many of these conditions.”
