Dunedin-based Pacific Edge Biotechnology Ltd has "exciting" prospects, with the rapidly approaching commercialisation of its bladder cancer diagnostic test, chief executive Dr David Darling said at the company's annual meeting.
Dr Darling, company chairman Chris Swann, and research director Associate Prof Parry Guilford, reported on a busy and promising period in the financial year ending on March 31, at the meeting in the city this week.
About 30 people attended.
He explained that the outcome of clinical trials of a new test - involving about 700 people in New Zealand, Australia and Russia - would be known in December.
Pacific Edge's bladder cancer diagnostic technology enables the early detection of bladder cancer from a small volume of urine - about 20ml, company officials say.
The non-invasive test would be a marked advance on cancer patients having to wait six to eight weeks to see a urologist at a hospital and having to stay overnight while cytology testing was carried out under general anaesthetic.
The test is expected to provide general practitioners and urologists with a quick and accurate measure of the presence of cancer.
"The promise of a much better diagnosis is a significant outcome," Dr Darling said.
Company officials said the past financial year had been "a very full and very satisfying year for the company - a year of tremendous achievement."
Dr Darling said the international market for medical tests was huge - amounting to many billions of dollars a year in the United States alone.
Genomic Health, a US medical testing company which had developed a breast cancer test, had achieved an annual revenue of about $US100 million, undertaking testing throughout the US at the company's own central testing facility.
Pacific Biotechnology was also establishing its own testing facility to enable it to undertake testing for bladder cancer, using urine samples provided by courier from throughout New Zealand and Australia.
The transtasman market for this test was a "nice" one in terms of its size, and it was a "very do-able market" for the company to handle from Dunedin.
And the company had already made a "great start" to its marketing efforts, he said.
