Healthscope To Market Pacific Edge Novel Diagnostic

NZX ANNOUNCEMENT 28 MARCH 2011NZX ANNOUNCEMENT 28 MARCH 2011

Healthscope To Market Pacific Edge Novel Diagnostic

Pacific Edge LimitedPacific Edge Limited and leading Australian health care provider Healthscope Limited Healthscope Limited have signed an agreement to market Pacific Edge’s (PE) novel diagnostic test for the detection of bladder cancer, CxbladderbladderCxbladder® across the Tasman.

Under the terms of the agreement, Healthscope Pathology will market and offer laboratory services to urologists and general practitioners (GP) for the detection of bladder cancer using CxbladderbladderCxbladder®. Pacific Edge will provide services to New Zealand urologists and GPs through its subsidiary Pacific Edge Diagnostics NZ Ltd, with its diagnostic laboratory based in Dunedin. Pacific Edge will retain the rights to the rest of the world for the marketing of CxbladderbladderCxbladder®. The terms of the license agreement are confidential.

A prominent private health care provider, Healthscope operates in every Australian State and Territory, as well as in Asia. Its reach of facilities firmly places Healthscope as the second largest Australian private hospital provider operating 44 private hospitals. The company includes a leading pathology business with facilities in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Vietnam and Malaysia; a growing medical centres division with over 48 clinics; and a diagnostic imaging division centred in major hospitals.

CxbladderbladderCxbladder® is a non-invasive, accurate test that enables the early detection of bladder cancer from a small volume of urine. It provides general practitioners and urologists with a quick, cost effective and accurate measure of the presence of the cancer, and provides urologists with the opportunity to reduce their reliance on the need for invasive tests such as cystoscopy. The recently completed multi-centre international clinical study recruited 467 patients from Australia and New Zealand. Results show that CxbladderbladderCxbladder® outperforms all of the benchmark technologies in the trial and detected nearly all of the tumours of concern to a urologist; greater than 95% of all late stage and high grade tumours.

Globally the cancer with the 9th highest incidence, bladder cancer is the 4th highest for men. One of the early symptoms of bladder cancer is the presence of blood in the urine, haematuria. People with haematuria present to their general practitioner before being referred to a urologist.

Treatment of bladder cancer incurs the highest total medical costs of any cancer, and in the United States this figure is approaching US$200,000 per patient from detection until death. In Australia there are expected to be in excess of 50,000 people presenting to their healthcare provider this year with blood in their urine, often a precursor to bladder cancer, and it is anticipated that the Australian healthcare system could invest in excess of $50 million per annum in investigating haematuria. CxbladderbladderCxbladder® is expected to completely replace cytology and be used to complement cystoscopy in the clinical care path for patients presenting to clinicians with haematuria.

Pacific Edge Limited (NZX: PEB):Pacific Edge Limited (NZX: PEB):
Pacific Edge (PE) is a New Zealand based biomedical and diagnostics company specialising in the discovery and commercialisation of diagnostic and prognostic technology for the early detection and monitoring of cancer. Products in development and in clinical trials are accurate and simple to use genomic and proteomic tools for the earlier detection, improved characterisation and better management of gastric, bladder, colorectal, endometrial cancers and melanoma. The company has recently completed and released its first product for the detection of bladder cancer, CxbladderbladderCxbladder®.

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