Two months after Dunedin firm Pacific Edge announced it had an agreement for the use of its bladder cancer testing technology in the Southern health region, the company has confirmed the contract remains unsigned with Te Whatu Ora Health New Zealand Southern.
The company announced it had struck a deal for the use of its Cxbladder genomic biomarker test in the Southern region in July.
This week Pacific Edge confirmed the deal was not yet complete.
In a brief statement chief financial officer Grant Gibson said the business case was with the HNZS management team and it would soon enter an approvals cycle.
A spokesman for the company later said the company had nothing further to add.
Two months ago, Pacific Edge commercial vice-president for the Asia Pacific region Brent Pownall said the company was delighted to be deploying Cxbladder in the Southern region, the home of the company and where Cxbladder was conceived and developed.
The agreement would mean that 15 of New Zealand’s 20 administrative health regions, which collectively cover more than 75% of the country’s population, would have access to the test via public health care.
Cxbladder would be available via Southern Community Laboratories sites and from GP offices, he said.
In hard-to-reach rural areas of the region, patients would be able to use Pacific Edge’s in-home sampling system, Mr Pownall said.
On the day of the announcement the company’s share price closed up 4c at 80c.
That share price did not last though and by the start of August it was trading at 49c.
Yesterday, the company’s share price closed at 48c.
HNZS was unable to respond to a request for comment.
