Dunedin-based cancer diagnostic company Pacific Edge is one of five New Zealand companies invited to attend the United States' largest health care conference, beginning in San Francisco this week.
It is the third time in as many years Pacific Edge has attended the conference and it is hoping to attract interest from potential future partners in a variety of fields, chief executive David Darling said when contacted in San Francisco yesterday.
"This is a great opportunity to profile what we are doing and look for potential partners in private health care organisations that are here," Mr Darling said.
The US market is the main focus of Pacific Edge, whose product Cxbladder is a quick, non-invasive urine-sample test to accurately diagnose bladder cancer. Last year, it recapitalised to the tune of $20.1 million.
Mr Darling said potential partnerships could include hospital companies, financial investor companies, service providers, legal through to clinical research groups to contracted sale-forces.
He understood Pacific Edge was one of 338 biotech-related companies alone invited to the JP Morgan sponsored conference, and is scheduled on Wednesday (US time) to give a Biotech Showcase presentation and profile on the company.
While Pacific Edge has commercial partnerships signed in Australia and Spain, construction of a US-based certified laboratory in Pennsylvania is under way. After fitting out and commissioning, it should be operational by the end of the year. It is designed to deliver 250,000 tests a year.
The Cxbladder diagnostic tool is expected to achieve better patient outcomes and provide cost-savings for healthcare systems.
New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, trade commissioner and director west Americas, Duncan Catanach, said the delegation of New Zealand life sciences companies had reached key stages in their respective development and joined throngs of international therapeutics, medical device and health IT companies in San Francisco.
"Initially focused primarily on agriculture, the country's scientific and technological capabilities have increasingly generated a wide range of human health applications, including medical devices and diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines, wound healing technologies, health IT, and life science research tools," he said in a recent statement.
Pacific Edge recently posted a half-year loss of $1.7 million, $300,000 more than budgeted for, mainly through investment in clinical trials, product development and intellectual property costs.
More than $15.7 million has been spent on research and development during the past decade and for its financial year to the end of March 2011, Pacific Edge booked an after-tax loss of $3.12 million, compared to a loss the year before of $2.52 million.
• The other four companies with New Zealand interests are separate biopharmaceutical companies CoDa Therapeutics and Innate Immunotherapeutics, regenerative medicine company Mesynthes and chromatography business PolyBatics.
