Dunedin cancer diagnostics company Pacific Edge has announced that one of the largest non-profit healthcare providers in the United States will start the commercial use of a second Cxbladder product, Cxbladder Triage.
Kaiser Permanente has more than 12 million members, operates 39 hospitals and employs about 23,000 physicians.
In July last year, Kaiser Permanente approved the commercial use of Pacific Edge’s Cxbladder products for patients being evaluated and managed for bladder cancer.
In a statement to the stock exchange yesterday, Pacific Edge announced Kaiser Permanente had told the company it intended to start using Cxbladder Triage from next month with patients presenting with haematuria (blood in the urine and a key indicator of bladder cancer).
The healthcare provider would start its commercial use of Cxbladder Triage in a single clinic comprising six urologists, the statement said.
Kaiser Permanente planned to progressively roll out Cxbladder Triage, alongside Cxbladder Monitor, across its network.
It would use Pacific Edge’s Patient In-Home Sample System for Cxbladder Triage, as was being done with Cxbladder Monitor at present, providing a "simple and convenient" way for both the patient and physician to manage urine sample collection.
Pacific Edge was delighted to continue the growth of its commercial partnership with Kaiser Permanente, Pacific Edge chief executive David Darling said.
"Since reaching commercial agreement with Kaiser Permanente we have focused on working with them to provide their urologists with a great user experience.
"This requires successfully integrating Cxbladder into their internal electronic medical records systems to ensure that our products and services are easily accessible to their urologists and patients," he said.
While Covid-19 continued to affect the speed of the Cxbladder rollout across the Kaiser Permanente network, Pacific Edge expected demand would continue to increase as Covid-19 related restrictions ease, Mr Darling said.
After the announcement yesterday, Pacific Edge’s share price climbed from $1.20 to to $1.26. It closed at $1.24.
