PEB
28/11/2013 10:58
GENERAL
REL: 1058 HRS Pacific Edge Limited
GENERAL: PEB: PE signs Cxbladder agreement with 3rd national provider-US
28 November 2013
Pacific Edge signs Cxbladder(TM) agreement with third national provider
network in the US
Pacific Edge has signed an agreement with Stratose, a large national provider
network in the USA, to enable the provision of Cxbladder to patients through
its large network of payers and providers. Stratose, one of the largest
directly managed participating provider networks in the United States
contracts with more than 850,000 direct and affiliate healthcare providers
and offers a medical network solution for more than 8.6 million Americans
through its client base consisting of insurance carriers, third party
administrators, health and welfare funds, employer groups and self-insured
health plans.
The agreement is the third signed by Pacific Edge with national provider
network organisations who contract with medical doctors, hospitals, and other
health care providers who have covenanted with an insurer or a third-party
administrator to provide health care to insured patients. The agreement with
Stratose follows Pacific Edge's recent announcements of agreements with
FedMed and ACPN providing 40 million and 14 million Americans respectively
with access to Cxbladder.1
Pacific Edge Chief Executive Officer David Darling says agreements with
national provider network organisations are a significant component in
Pacific Edge's commercial roll-out of Cxbladder in the United States, the
world's largest single healthcare market.
"The endorsement of these agencies provides a clear commercial process
linking providers and payers and signals to clinicians across the United
States the availability of Cxbladder. The addition of Stratose along with
FedMed and ACPN now provides network coverage to a significant pool of
American people giving commercial access to Cxbladder and its positive
benefits as a quick, cost effective, non-invasive and highly accurate cancer
detection test, all of which are particularly appealing to US healthcare
professionals, patients, and insurers alike."
Pacific Edge, through its wholly owned subsidiary Pacific Edge Diagnostics
USA (PEDUSA) has already achieved the first commercial sales of Cxbladder in
the US2 and is processing commercial samples, collected using its proprietary
Urine Sampling System, at its custom built laboratory in Hershey,
Pennsylvania.
"Our sales and marketing teams are now focussed on the clinicians who are
treating the largest number of bladder cancer patients to ensure they fully
understand the benefits of Cxbladder," says Jackie Walker, Chief Executive
Officer PEDUSA.
"In addition, we are working with large commercial payers and the Centre for
Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which provides healthcare insurance to
approximately 150 million people. Other large urology customers being
targeted include the large Integrated Healthcare Systems, the Veterans
Administration (VA), and Large Urology Group Practices (LUGS), who are the
point of contact for many patients presenting with haematuria (blood in the
urine) which is an early indicator of possible bladder cancer."
More than one million Americans will undergo medical investigation this year
for potential bladder cancer at an estimated cost of $US1 billion. Bladder
cancer is one of the most expensive cancers to treat. The very high
recurrence of this disease, requiring some patients to receive expensive
monitoring for the rest of their lives, causes bladder cancer to have the
highest total medical costs of any cancer from detection to death. In the US,
the total medical cost approaches $US220,000 per patient.
1
http://www.pacificedge.co.nz/news-and-media/news/pacific-edge-agreement-with-
national-providernetwork-fedmed-gives-40-million-americans-access-to-cxbladde
r/;http://www.pacificedge.co.nz/news-and-media/news/pacific-edge-signs-agreem
ent-with-americas-choice-provider-network-to-expand-access-to-cxbladder-in-th
e-us/
2
http://www.pacificedgedx.com/news-and-media/news/first-commercial-sales-achie
ved-for-pacificedges-cxbladder-in-the-usa/
For more information contact:
David Darling
Chief Executive Officer
Pacific Edge Ltd
P: +64 (3) 479 5800
ABOUT PACIFIC EDGE
Pacific Edge Limited (NZX: PEB) is a New Zealand based cancer diagnostic
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
cancers and melanoma. The company has recently completed and released its
first product for the detection of bladder cancer, Cxbladder, and is actively
marketing the product to urologists in New Zealand, Australia and soon to be
Spain and the US.
www.pacificedge.co.nz
ABOUT PACIFIC EDGE DIAGNOSTICS
Pacific Edge takes its exciting cancer detection tests to market through its
wholly owned subsidiaries, Pacific Edge Diagnostics NZ Ltd and Pacific Edge
Diagnostics USA Ltd, and selected commercial partners in Australia and Spain,
Healthscope and Oryzon respectively.
www.pacificedgedx.com
ABOUT Cxbladder
Cxbladder is a proprietary, accurate molecular diagnostic test that enables
the non-invasive 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 published, Journal of Urology in September
2012, multi-centre international clinical study recruited 485 patients from
Australia and New Zealand. Results show that Cxbladder out-performed all of
the benchmark technologies in the clinical trial and detected nearly all of
the tumours of concern to a urologist; At a performance of 82% sensitivity
and 85% specificity the test sees 100% of T1, 100% of T2, 100% of T3, 100% of
Tis and 100% of upper urinary tract cancers as well as greater than 95% of
high grade tumours.
www.cxbladder.com
ABOUT BLADDER CANCER
Globally, bladder cancer has the 9th highest incidence and the 4th highest
incidence for men. One of the early symptoms of bladder cancer is the
presence of blood in the urine, haematuria. People with haematuria often
present to their general practitioner before being referred on to a
urologist.
There are a number of 'at risk' occupations that have shown a much higher
incidence of bladder cancer. Fire fighters and fire control officers have
shown in a US study to have a twice the incidence of bladder cancer over non
fire fighters. Smoking is a significant contributing factor (over 50% in
males and 33% in females, and approximately one of every two new incidences
of bladder cancer is linked to smoking). Exposure to certain industrial
chemicals or carcinogens increases risks for some occupations e.g.
hairdressers, painters, printers, fire fighters and metal workers and
chemical engineers. Incidence increases with age so the older you are, the
greater the potential for bladder cancer.
Bladder cancer has a very high recurrence rate of approximately 50%-70% with
up to 30% of these recurring as later stage tumours. This is a higher
recurrence than for skin cancer! However, bladder cancers are highly
treatable, especially if detected in the early stages. If diagnosed early
there is a much higher probability of survival for early stage tumours
relative to later stage tumours. This makes timely and regular surveillance
and monitoring of this cancer a key element of the clinical process and of
the individual's annual healthcare plan.
End CA:00244427 For:PEB Type:GENERAL Time:2013-11-28 10:58:14
