The traditional bell-ringing was completed at a ceremony at NZX’s offices in Auckland attended by Pacific Edge representatives, investors and analysts.
In a statement, chief executive Dr Peter Meintjes said it had been an exciting story from the beginning for the Dunedin-headquartered cancer diagnostics company, but increasing in complexity as it navigated the nuances of the US healthcare market since setting up operations in Hershey, Pennsylvania, in 2013.
The company’s achievements had relied on the listing of its shares on the NZX.
"As a public company we have had ready access to the equity capital necessary to overcome the challenges we have faced over two decades of operations.
"The listing has also given us a public profile that has bolstered our reputation with all our stakeholders, from clinicians to healthcare payers and our investors," he said.
From its listing on February 12, 2003 at a market capitalisation of $1.2million, Pacific Edge had grown in capability and experience to become a member of the benchmark S&P NZX 50 index of New Zealand’s leading companies, Dr Meintjes said.
"We have evolved from an academic-founded start-up discovering diagnostic biomarkers across a range of cancers to a company that subsequently specialised in urine-based bladder cancer diagnostics, and more recently transitioned to become an industry-leading oncology diagnostics company in the US, the world’s largest healthcare market.
"With the signing of the landmark commercial contracts with the US Centres for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the US’ largest integrated healthcare provider, Kaiser Permanente, in 2020, we are now driving the adoption of our Cxbladder suite of genomic bladder cancer tests with a focus on the US."
Those significant achievements were underpinned by Pacific Edge’s strong research and innovation capability; a comprehensive clinical evidence programme focused on generating the data sets necessary to change clinical practice and drive the inclusion of its tests in globally relevant clinical guidelines; and a commercial operations team focused on healthcare payer coverage and building clinician awareness Cxbladder’s clinical utility and driving its adoption, he said.
The US, which represented the largest single opportunity for Pacific Edge, had several large government insurers such as Medicare, Medicaid and the Veterans Association, more than 6000 private healthcare insurers, a mixture of private practice, community urology and state and private hospital systems.
The US also has the most mobile patient population in the world — where individuals regularly change their healthcare providers and insurers.
Despite that complexity, Pacific Edge continued to observe growing recognition among clinicians of the clinical utility of Cxbladder through the strength of its clinical evidence, the experience and expertise of its commercial team "and the determination with which we apply ourselves across all teams within the organisation", he said.
NZX chief executive Mark Peterson said the exchange was delighted to celebrate the milestone with Pacific Edge. The company had shown that New Zealand’s capabilities in the healthcare and biotechnology sectors could be world leading, and the role NZX could play in supporting the country’s innovators to realise their potential on a global stage.
In November, Pacific Edge’s released its financial results for the half year to September 30, which showed a 62% surge in operating revenue from test sales to $8.7million on the previous corresponding period.
Total revenue increased 102% to $13.6million, total laboratory throughput increased 34% to 14,917, while after-tax net losses increased from $9million to $10.6million.
Yesterday, its shares were trading at $0.475.
