THORNE HEALTHTECH AND GENTEGRA COLLABORATE TO DEVELOP A NEXT-GENERATION WHOLE BLOOD DNA COLLECTION AND EXTRACTION KIT

NEW YORK, Oct. 25, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Thorne HealthTech, Inc. ("Thorne HealthTech" or "Thorne") (NASDAQ: THRN), a leader in developing innovative solutions for a personalized approach to health and wellness, announced today that it is collaborating with GenTegra, an innovator and leader of complete biological sample protection, to utilize GenTegra's patented Active Chemical Protection™ technology and Thorne's OneDraw™ collection device to develop a whole blood DNA collection cartridge and a complete stabilization and extraction kit.

The collaboration paves the way for Thorne and GenTegra to introduce a product that will be inclusive of Thorne's OneDraw DNA cartridges and GenTegra's GenSolve technology for highly efficient DNA extraction. The cartridges will feature cold-chain-free preservation of DNA, combined with DNA extraction technology as well as the lab testing kits that will benefit both users and labs processing the samples.

"By combining our industry leading collection device and GenTegra's protective technology, we are introducing cutting-edge capabilities that can have a huge impact on precision medical research," said Jerome Scelza, Co-CEO of Drawbridge Health, which is majority owned by Thorne.

In a recent study, GenTegra demonstrated that its Active Chemical Protection technology could be applied to the cold-chain-free blood storage matrix of OneDraw's blood collection device to further preserve DNA at room temperature. Additionally, GenTegra's proprietary reagent kit, GenSolve for laboratories, allowed for the extraction of greater amounts of high-quality DNA from whole blood collection matrices.

"GenTegra's Active Chemical Protection technology is utilized across a broad range of life science applications to stabilize and protect DNA and RNA from a variety of sample types," said Bob Barrett, President of GenTegra. "We're encouraged by the progress and successes we've been testing and are looking forward to working with Thorne and its OneDraw device and cartridge to further enhance DNA preservation and extraction for remote patient sample collection."

"Sample collection is a critical component of delivering accurate test results to the end user," said Paul Jacobson, CEO of Thorne HealthTech. "From collection to analysis, GenTegra's powerful chemistry, combined with a cold-chain-free storage platform, provides a huge opportunity for our product to be deployed into numerous healthcare fields to improve user experience and reach more people with the same degree of sample integrity and accuracy in market today."

OneDraw was recently certified in Japan as a medical device, having been cleared by the Pharmaceutical and Medical Devices Agency (PMDA). The device is already approved by the FDA as a Class II medical device, and it has a European Conformity mark for supervised use by health-care professionals to collect blood samples to measure HbA1c for monitoring the long-term control of blood sugar (glucose) in diabetic individuals.

About Thorne HealthTech:
Thorne HealthTech is a leader in developing innovative solutions for delivering personalized approaches to health and wellness. As a science-driven wellness company that empowers individuals with the support, education, and solutions they need to achieve healthy aging – living healthier longer – Thorne utilizes testing and data to create improved product efficacy and to deliver personalized solutions to consumers, health professionals, and corporations. Predicated on the power of the individual, Thorne leverages artificial intelligence models to provide insights and personalized data, products, and services that help individuals take a proactive and actionable approach to improve and maintain their health over a lifetime. Thorne is the only supplement manufacturer that collaborates with Mayo Clinic on health and wellness research and content, and is trusted by more than five million customers, 46,000+ health-care professionals, thousands of professional athletes, and more than 100 professional sports teams and U.S. National Teams. For more information, visit Thorne.com.

About Drawbridge Health
Drawbridge Health is a healthcare technology company focused on reinventing the blood draw experience, enabling comfortable convenient blood sample collection anytime and anywhere. By integrating engineering, chemistries and modular design, Drawbridge Health has developed a people-friendly system for collecting and stabilizing blood samples, opening new doors to enable access to important health information. For more information, please visit www.drawbridgehealth.com.

About GenTegra:
GenTegra's mission is to improve the quality of biological research and medical care by protecting and preserving sample integrity. Biological test results are only as good as the quality of the sample. By providing industry leading stability technology and products GenTegra enables customers to achieve reliable results. GenTegra-developed products include sample stabilization products for a wide variety of applications including, RNASeq for genomics and transcriptomics, DNA analysis of forensic samples from crime scenes, or whole blood from patient-directed sampling devices. Our sample stabilization products impact outcomes in clinical, research, and other life science applications.

SOURCE Thorne HealthTech, Inc.