Government agency Health Innovation Hub has signed an agreement to fast-track the introduction of Pacific Edge’s non-invasive bladder cancer detection system to the four main district health boards.
The agreement effectively means that 2.2 million New Zealanders (half the population) now have faster access to Pacific Edge’s Cxbladder technology.
The company says this will result in significant savings to DHBs from using Cxbladder as an alternative to commonly used testing regimes.
Pacific Edge chief executive David Darling says the agreement is a strong endorsement of the company’s ability to deliver sound clinical outcomes for patients and “significant savings in time and expense” for DHBs.
“The option of patients being able to give a urine sample at home and for clinicians to receive the results a few days later has the potential to offer DHBs significant cost benefits by reducing the number of patients requiring a full clinical work-up.”
The HIH is a recently formed government enterprise with a mandate to enable technology commercialisation into and out of the country’s four largest DHBs.
HIH chief executive Frances Guyett says identifying and forming strategic relationships with key external partners to accelerate commercialisation by enabling access to DHBs is one of the HIH’s key objectives.
“Cxbladder is an exciting innovation, with the potential to bring benefits to millions of people who show the symptoms of or need monitoring for bladder cancer.”
Meanwhile, Cxbladder has recently also completed a "blinded user program" in both Waitemata and Canterbury DHBs.
“It was particularly pleasing to see such great results from these blinded studies, confirming the outcome of the large clinical study published in the Journal of Urology in the US in September 2012,” Mr Darling says.
Pacific Edge’s stated goal is for $100 million annual revenue within the next five years.
The shares [PEB:NZX] are up 8c (4.9%) to $1.72 on the news.