By Blake Brittain

Feb 21 - Medical diagnostics company Guardant Health GH.O has sued rival Natera NTRA.O in California federal court for allegedly stealing trade secrets related to cancer-detection blood tests.

Guardant said in a lawsuit filed Thursday that scientists poached by Natera transferred thousands of confidential files to the company to develop competing tests.

A Natera spokesperson said on Friday that the complaint was "riddled with baseless allegations" and that the company would defend itself against the claims.

Attorneys and spokespeople for Guardant did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Friday.

The case is one of several contentious legal disputes among competitors in the genomics industry, which involves the science of the human genome. The global genomics market was worth nearly $34 billion in 2023 and could grow to $157 billion by 2033, according to a report from biopharmaceutical news outlet BioSpace.

Guardant won a $292.5 million false advertising verdict against Natera in November over allegations that it made misleading claims comparing the companies' colorectal cancer blood tests.

Guardant's new lawsuit said its Shield was the first FDA-approved early cancer blood test. According to the complaint, Natera began targeting Guardant employees "aggressively" to "jumpstart its lagging position in the early cancer test industry."

Guardant said that two of its scientists, Alan Selewa and Catalin Barbacioru, left the company for Natera earlier this year. The complaint alleged both scientists transferred secret files about the company's blood tests to external hard drives before leaving to share them with Natera.

Selewa and Barbacioru could not immediately be reached for comment on the allegations.

Guardant asked the court for an order blocking the scientists from sharing its secrets and an unspecified amount of monetary damages.

The case is Guardant Health Inc v. Natera Inc, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, No. 3:25-cv-01837.

For Guardant: Jennifer Keller and Chase Scolnick of Keller Anderle Scolnick

For Natera and the scientists: attorney information not yet available