Pacific Edge has now burnt through a total $34.5 million in research and development funding since 2003, with the latest $6.94 million loss representing spending during the past year in readiness for full commercialisation.
Chief executive David Darling said it had been a ''long and expensive'' year for the company, in spending $3.2 million setting up the US laboratory in Pennsylvania, plus attracting a staff of 25, which is expected to expand by a further 14 in coming months as the US laboratory readies to open.
''That number is expected to rise rapidly, to 60 or 70 [staff] over the next couple of years,'' Mr Darling said yesterday, when contacted in San Francisco.
Until Pacific Edge gained regulatory approval in March to operate in the US, its ''hands had been tied'' in not being allowed to market its services in any way, Mr Darling said.
Cxbladder is a non-invasive urine test, with Pacific Edge laboratories turning around results in a matter of days, as opposed to traditional internally invasive tests, costing more than six times as much.
Mr Darling expected the first US tests would be going through the Pennsylvania lab within about eight weeks, while the first tests from a North Island health board contract would begin at the $700,000 Dunedin laboratory next month.
The company recapitalised during the year to March 2012, raising $20 million in private placements and direct share offers to fund the commercialisation launch. A year ago, it had $17.9 million cash in the bank, which for the year to March 2013, had fallen to $10.6 million.
From a share low of 19c a year ago, Pacific Edge shares topped 76c in mid-March, and had since declined to 58c, rising slightly to 59c after yesterday's announcement.
Craigs Investment Partners' broker, Peter McIntyre, said the $6.94 million loss had been expected by the market, which understood the long process Pacific Edge had go through to begin operating in the US.
''They're having to spend money to make. With getting traction in the US and New Zealand they should begin returning those losses during the next 24 months,'' he said.
The $6.94 million loss was less than a budgeted $7.14 million loss.
Mr McIntyre expected Pacific Edge would be be turning over $100 million annually, once all its laboratories began working to capacity.
Mr Darling said Cxbladder had several applications for a number of variations within diagnosing bladder cancer, and the company was in negotiations with several parties, but he was unable to identify them yet.
''The goal is that Cxbladder becomes the Swiss Army knife of urology,'' Mr Darling said.
Pacific Edge now has laboratories in Spain, the US, Australia and New Zealand and recently had its patent granted in China for a gastric cancer diagnostic tool.
Mr Darling said the loss was because a ''significant proportion'' of company spending went into the US launch, the Dunedin laboratory and labs of its licensed partners and he expected to update the market in about eight months.
Mr Darling described the United States healthcare market as the largest in the world, with expectations being that 1 million people go every year to their GPs with concerns about blood in their urine.
