Ann: MEETING: PEB: PE building presence in world's largest biomedical market

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					PEB
22/08/2014 12:41
MEETING

REL: 1241 HRS Pacific Edge Limited

MEETING: PEB: PE building presence in world's largest biomedical market

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22 August 2014

PACIFIC EDGE BUILDING ITS PRESENCE IN WORLD'S LARGEST BIOMEDICAL MARKET

Pacific Edge Annual Meeting of Shareholders, Dunedin, New Zealand

At its annual shareholders' meeting held yesterday in Dunedin, New Zealand,
cancer diagnostic developer, Pacific Edge, celebrated the commercial launch
of its flagship bladder cancer diagnostic product, Cxbladder, into the US and
provided shareholders with an update on its growth plans.

America is the world's largest biomedical market and offers a massive
opportunity for Pacific Edge, with up to 2 million potential Cxbladder test
opportunities every year.  The Company generated the first commercial sales
of Cxbladder in the US in October 2013 and is now focused on strengthening
and growing its footprint in the American market.

At the shareholders' meeting yesterday, the Company outlined its six key
initiatives for the 2015 financial year. These include the expansion of the
US Sales and Marketing team and the continuing rollout of 'User Programmes',
where high volume clinicians or clinical groups are offered the opportunity
to trial and use Cxbladder in their practices. In some cases, these clinical
groups can be very large, with up to 100 urologists seeing thousands of
patients every year.

Negotiating agreements with payers in the US healthcare system, including
national and regional provider networks, is also a key initiative. Since
October 2013, Pacific Edge has signed four agreements with National Provider
Networks - FedMed, America's Choice Provider Network (ACPN), Stratos and,
most recently, with MultiPlan. These agreements give millions of Americans
access to Cxbladder.

The Company is also advancing commercial relationships with private insurance
companies, Integrated Healthcare Providers, Veterans Administration, and the
Centre for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which provides healthcare
insurance for 100 million people or nearly a third of the American
population.
Research and development of new products is a key priority as the Company
works to realise its vision to "have a suite of bladder cancer diagnostic
products for the urologist and GP that enables them to obtain a complete
clinical evaluation using our Cx technology".

CEO of Pacific Edge, David Darling said: "Over the past three years, we have
been working closely with urologists to understand the value Cxbladder can
offer them in a clinical environment, and have identified a number of other
potential uses of this technology, at different stages of the detection and
treatment cycle for bladder cancer.

"We are currently developing our next product, which can be used by primary
physicians to triage out patients who do not require a referral for a full
urological work-up. This could dramatically reduce the number of patients
requiring a full work-up, reducing the cost and pressure on the healthcare
system and offering peace of mind and better care for patients".

"We already have growing brand and product awareness amongst urologists and
believe that focusing on developing new products for bladder cancer is the
fastest and surest way for our Company to grow".

While the US is Pacific Edge's largest targeted market opportunity, the
Company also has 'franchise-like' partnerships in New Zealand, Australia and
Spain. There has also been positive interest received from potential partners
in other markets, particularly in South East Asia.

New Zealand is an important market for trialling innovative and alternative
methods of delivering Cxbladder to the market, with the Company recently
announcing the launch of an e-commerce site. This is a key component of the
commercial strategy in New Zealand and initial feedback is very positive,
with the first e-sale about an hour after launching the site. The online
strategy will be progressed in each of Pacific Edge's markets, where
possible.

Pacific Edge Chairman, Chris Swann, said: "Pacific Edge is a unique New
Zealand business and our products can make a difference in healthcare
globally".

"This is an exciting time for our Company as we start to build the commercial
side of our business. Whilst Pacific Edge is still operating at a loss, we
have a well thought-out strategy and have successfully executed the launch of
our flagship Cxbladder product into the US market. Our business growth is
progressing to plan and we expect to see cashflow from sales offsetting our
losses as we increase the acceptance and use of our Cxbladder technology in
our targeted markets, particularly the US".

"The Company is well cashed up and the capital available to us has been
earmarked to accelerate our sales force rollout in the US and to continue our
research and development of new products for urologist customers".

 "We will continue to evaluate other markets where we can leverage our
products and franchised business model".
"Our target is to achieve gross revenues of over $100 million after five full
years of trading and the Board remains confident that this is achievable
under our current strategy and growth plans".

In line with its commercial expansion, Pacific Edge is also looking to add
further commercial and international expertise to its Board. A further step
in the Board refresh process was triggered following the resignation of Colin
Dawson, effective as at the close of the 2014 annual shareholders meeting.

Chris Swann said: "On behalf of the Board, I would like to thank Colin for
the significant contribution he has made in guiding the Company through its
formative and early stages of growth.  We are in discussions with several
candidates whose commercial skills and capabilities would be of value to the
Company and we hope to make an announcement on the appointment of new
directors in the near future".

Shareholders passed all resolutions at the meeting, being:

- Re-election of Christopher Swann as a Director of the Company.
- Re-election of David Band as a Director of the Company.
- Election of David Darling as an Executive Director of the Company.
- Recorded the re-appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers as auditor of the
Company and authorised the Directors to fix the auditor's remuneration for
the ensuing year.
- Approved an increase in the maximum aggregate amount per annum payable by
the Company to the Directors, in their capacity as Directors, by $26,000 to
$198,000.

Following the resignation of Colin Dawson, the Pacific Edge Board currently
comprises five Directors. Pursuant to NZSX Listing Rule 3.3.2, all Directors
are determined to be Independent Directors as defined in NZSX Listing Rule
1.6.1, except for Anatole Masfen and David Darling, due to a Disqualifying
Relationship as defined in NZSX Listing Rule 1.6.1.

The AGM presentation and commentary are available on the NZX website or at:
http://www.pacificedgedx.com/investors/annual-reports/

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 completed and released its first
product for the detection of bladder cancer, Cxbladder, and is actively
marketing the product to physicians and clinicians in New Zealand, Australia
and the USA and soon in Spain.

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 and other urinary tract cancers from a
small volume of urine. Cxbladder is commercialised in the USA as a Laboratory
Developed Test (LDT).  It provides physicians and clinicians 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 Cxbladder cancer detection test
has been validated by a multicentre, international clinical study.  Results
published in the Journal of Urology (Sept 2012) 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:00254268 For:PEB    Type:MEETING    Time:2014-08-22 12:41:16