Pacific Edge Announces User Programme with Singapore General Hospital

Cancer diagnostics company, Pacific Edge Limited (NZX: PEB) has signed an agreement with Singapore General Hospital (SGH), the country’s first and largest hospital, to conduct a User Programme (observational study) with Pacific Edge’s Cxbladder Triage and Cxbladder Detect tests.

SGH will evaluate the use of the Cxbladder tests for several clinical applications in their settings. Firstly, as a test to triage out patients with a low risk of bladder cancer, potentially avoiding an invasive urological workup for those patients identified as having a low probability of having urothelial carcinoma (bladder cancer); and secondly, for the detection of bladder cancer as part of the urological workup. 

The study aims to evaluate Cxbladder on a variety of patients as well as establishing the clinical framework for assessment of Cxbladder by a number of other urologists in Singapore moving forward.

This is the second User Programme which Pacific Edge has announced with a leading hospital in Singapore since 2015, when it first began investigating the opportunity in South East Asia.

Pacific Edge Chief Executive Officer, David Darling, said: “South East Asia offers an exciting opportunity for our company and we have established a commercial base in Singapore which will allow us to build our presence in this region.

“Singapore offers a number of benefits including internationally certified hospitals and a significant and growing population of medical tourists. It was ranked best in the world in 2014 for the most efficient healthcare system out of 51 countries¹ and first as the favoured global medical tourism destination². In 2013, medical expenditure generated from medical tourists was S$832 million. Health screenings make up part of this expenditure and are popular with tourists and locals alike. We expect that the Cxbladder suite of products will appeal to people seeking these work-ups.

"Singapore General Hospital is the flagship hospital of Singapore’s public healthcare system as well as a leader in translational and clinical research. We are excited to provide Cxbladder for evaluation by the urology team.”

Chairman of Pacific Edge, Chris Gallaher, commented: “This agreement is another significant milestone for Pacific Edge as we build our international presence, particularly in the USA, and also in South East Asia and our other targeted markets.”

Investigation of haematuria (blood in the urine) places considerable burdens on both patients and healthcare providers. Patients with these symptoms often undergo a full urological exam yet very few are ultimately diagnosed with bladder cancer. Pacific Edge’s ‘one stop shop’ of non invasive, highly accurate and cost effective Cxbladder tests enables people with a low risk of bladder cancer or recurrence of bladder cancer, to avoid unnecessary and invasive urological evaluation, and assists clinicians to confidently diagnose the presence of bladder cancer.

About Singapore General Hospital

SGH has been providing quality healthcare since 1821 and currently, with a team of 10,000 staff, caters to over 1 million patients per year.  Boasting five National Specialist Centres co-located on the SGH Campus, facilitating a multi-disciplinary approach to treatment, SGH accounts for about a quarter of the total acute hospital beds in the public sector and about one-fifth of acute beds in Singapore.  The hospital practices team-based care, provided by clinicians, nurses as well as allied health professionals, and is accredited by the Joint Commission International for meeting its standards of safety and quality in healthcare.

Clinical research is an integral part of SGH’s institutional practice and is actively carried out by clinicians and scientists from medical, nursing and allied health departments. Seeking to bring its patients new and better care and therapies through research, the integration of innovative technologies such as Cxbladder works in with SGH’s vision to be a renowned organisation at the leading edge of medicine. 

ABOUT Cxbladder Triage

Cxbladder Triage combines the power of the genomic biomarkers with additional phenotypic and clinical risk factors to accurately identify patients with haematuria who have a low probability of bladder cancer and may not require a more extensive urological evaluation. Cxbladder Triage is a tool for use by clinicians and physicians in primary evaluation of patients with hematuria and is intended to reduce the need for an expensive and invasive work-up in patients who have a low probability of having urothelial carcinoma. 

ABOUT Cxbladder Detect

Cxbladder Detect enables the non-invasive detection of bladder and other urinary tract cancers from a small volume of a patients’ urine. Cxbladder Detect was launched in 2013 in the USA and is commercially available in New Zealand, Australia and the USA as a Laboratory Developed Test (LDT) from the company’s CLIA certified laboratories. Cxbladder Detect provides physicians and clinicians with a quick, cost effective and accurate measure of the presence of the cancer as an effective adjunct to cystoscopy.

ABOUT Cxbladder Monitor

Cxbladder Monitor, the third test in the Cxbladder portfolio for urologists, is a proprietary, non-invasive, molecular diagnostic test that combines genomic biomarkers measured from a small quantity of a patient’s urine, with patient specific clinical factors to better monitor bladder cancer patients for recurrence. Bladder cancer has a recurrence rate of 50-80% and requires life-long surveillance. Cxbladder Monitor accurately identifies patients with a prior history of urothelial cancer (UC) whose Cxbladder Monitor score shows that they have a low probability of recurrent urothelial carcinoma. Cxbladder Monitor is designed to be used as the preferred adjunct test to cystoscopy in the management of patients for ongoing evaluation of recurrent bladder cancer.

 Refer to www.cxbladder.com for more information.

¹ Bloomberg, 2014