His tiny pre­na­tal test­ing com­pa­ny has big plans af­ter ex­act­ing le­gal re­venge on lab gi­ants

Ravin­der Dhal­lan’s name is on key patents in non­in­va­sive pre­na­tal test­ing, a field that has re­shaped screen­ing for ex­pec­tant moth­ers. But he was a mi­nor fig­ure in the $3.8 bil­lion mar­ket.

Then, in 2020, his tiny com­pa­ny Rav­gen filed lit­i­ga­tion that ac­cused ri­vals of copy­ing its tech­nol­o­gy.

Over the last year, Rav­gen has won set­tle­ments or law­suits against some of the biggest names in test­ing. It was award­ed $375.5 mil­lion from Lab­o­ra­to­ry Cor­po­ra­tion of Amer­i­ca, bet­ter known as Lab­corp, af­ter a ju­ry ver­dict and a judge’s or­der for puni­tive dam­ages. Oth­er be­he­moths — Quest Di­ag­nos­tics, PerkinElmer and Il­lu­mi­na — have set­tled for undis­closed sums. Lit­i­ga­tion against Nat­era, Roche, Myr­i­ad and Bio­ra is on­go­ing, though the de­fen­dants have ar­gued that their meth­ods were de­rived in­de­pen­dent­ly or with part­ners.

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.

SIGN UP LOG IN BECOME A PREMIUM SUBSCRIBER