What's Behind This Company's Mission To Transform Prenatal Medicine

​FOURTEEN YEARS AGO, Matthew Rabinowitz’s sister gave birth to a child with Down syndrome, who died six days later. The family was devastated—and entirely blindsided, as the screening tests available at the time had missed the baby’s condition.

- Matthew Rabinowitz

Rabinowitz, who had previously co-founded an online merchandising firm and a location based service technology company, knew exactly what he wanted to do next. “There were inventions to be made in the area of biology,” he says. “It was so much more meaningful than what I had been doing.”

His San Carlos, California–based company is now a player in the crowded field of noninvasive prenatal testing, a $665 million-plus global market, according to Persistence Market Research. Natera’s flagship product, Panorama, can pick up on fetal chromosomal issues at nine weeks, by analyzing traces of fetal cells that circulate in the mother’s blood. The screening test requires only a blood draw, and can be performed at a much earlier stage in the pregnancy than more invasive diagnostic procedures like amniocentesis.

With that ease comes a downside: These tests, known as NIPTs, assess risk but are not as definitive as more traditional diagnostics. As a result, false positives do occur.