Pacific Edge and Labtests Ltd have signed an agreement to market and sell Pacific Edge's Cxbladder diagnostic test. Labtests supplies overall pathology services to 1.5 million Aucklanders and Northlanders. Pacific Edge shares were trading up slightly at 19c yesterday.
The agreement gives Labtests the exclusive right to market and sell Cxbladder to urologists and general practitioners in the Auckland and Northland regions, while Pacific Edge will provide the laboratory analytical services from its diagnostic lab in Dunedin for all tests sold by Labtests.
Pacific Edge has won contracts in several other countries, including Australia and Spain, and Cxbladder is still being marketed to urologists in New Zealand and Australia.
Portugal is also being targeted.
Pacific Edge chief executive David Darling said in a statement the company retained the rights to the rest of New Zealand for the marketing and sale of Cxbladder.
Pacific Edge has spent more than $15.7 million on research and development on cancer diagnostics during the past 10 years and recapitalised itself last year and raised $20.1 million, to assist in commercialising Cxbladder.
In early-February, Pacific Edge announced it was setting up its United States commercial laboratory and headquarters for its diagnostic bladder cancer test in Pennsylvania, within the Hershey Centre for Applied Research, a university and technology research facility.
Pacific Edge will receive more than $US2.3 million ($NZ2.79 million) in grants and incentives from the state of Pennsylvania's business division, the Economic Development Administration of the Department of Commerce, to build and fit out its lab in the centre.
The US market has been Pacific Edge's focus for the past 24 month. Construction of the lab in Pennsylvania has begun and it is expected to be operational by the end of the year.
It will have the capacity to deliver 250,000 tests a year to US GPs and urologists.
• Labtests, owned by the Healthscope Group, is a pathology services provider contracted to the Auckland Regional District Health Board and is IANZ accredited. It employs 600 staff, including 15 pathologists.
