Sera Prognostics Inc., The Pregnancy Company® (NASDAQ: SERA), focused on improving maternal and neonatal health by providing innovative pregnancy biomarker information to doctors and patients, and Banner Health today announced that Sera’s PreTRM® Test will be available to Banner – University Family Care/ AHCCCS Complete Care (B – UFC/ACC) members.
The PreTRM Test is the only broadly clinically validated, commercially available blood test that provides an early, individual risk assessment for spontaneous preterm birth in asymptomatic, singleton pregnancies.
B – UFC/ACC is a Medicaid plan offered by Banner – University Health Plans, which is based in Tucson, AZ, and serves more than 300,000 members in ten Arizona counties.
“We are very pleased to work with Banner Health, which shares our commitment to reducing the adverse consequences of preterm birth. This organization is respected nationwide as an innovative leader in new healthcare models designed to optimize its members’ health while reducing the costs of care,” said Gregory C. Critchfield, MD, MS, Chairman and CEO of Sera Prognostics. “Preterm birth is associated with health complications that can affect babies at birth and also throughout the rest of their lives. Prematurity impacts not only mothers and the babies themselves but also their families, healthcare providers, payers, and communities. We developed the PreTRM® Test to help pregnant women and their physicians understand and take actions to mitigate elevated risks of premature birth, with the important goal of improving the health of mothers and babies and, in so doing, reducing healthcare system costs and burden.”
A rigorous health economic analysis published in ClinicoEconomics and Outcomes Research (https://www.dovepress.com/cost-effectiveness-of-a-proteomic-test-for-preterm-birth-prediction-peer-reviewed-fulltext-article-CEOR) in September 2021 shows that application of the PreTRM® strategy, consisting of testing and proactive, evidence-based interventions, improves neonatal outcomes and reduces immediate and long-term treatment costs associated with premature birth when compared to routine care.
“Value, not volume, is Banner’s driving factor, and our providers are rewarded for high-quality results and providing the latest in evidence-based preventive care,” said Robert Krauss, MD, Medical Director, Banner – University Health Plans. “A growing body of evidence supports the potential for the PreTRM® Test to improve fetal-maternal health outcomes and reduce the costs associated with premature birth. Making this cutting-edge predictive test available to our members advances our goal of improving the health of our member populations overall by providing individualized care that helps each member achieve the highest level of wellness. We are excited to integrate the PreTRM® Test into our fetal-maternal care protocols.”
The PreTRM® Test was developed and validated for prediction of spontaneous preterm birth (sPTB) broadly in the U.S. in the Proteomic Assessment of Preterm Risk (PAPR) study. In a subsequent large prospective U.S. study, the Multicenter Assessment of a Spontaneous Preterm Birth Risk Predictor (TREETOP), the biomarkers were further demonstrated to be predictive of very early preterm birth of any cause, length of neonatal hospital stay, and neonatal morbidity and mortality. Additional new data published in May 2022 showed improved PreTRM® Test predictive performance for women whose due dates are more reliably determined by ultrasound.
