Pacific Edge Limited is pleased to advise that it has reached a commercial agreement with Northland District Health Board (DHB) and Northland’s primary health entity Mahitahi Hauora for the use of Cxbladder products. This will extend the national coverage of Cxbladder delivered through New Zealand’s public healthcare providers.

Northland DHB covers the northernmost part of New Zealand, serving a population of over 190,000, of which approximately one-third are Maori and with a higher than average number of people aged 50 years or older.

Northland urologists, Tony Nixon, Thigesh Naidoo and Jonathan Masters, have led the adoption process for Cxbladder products in Northland. Under the new program, patients with blood in their urine (haematuria) will now be referred by their primary care physician (GP) for the Cxbladder Triage test and will be able to provide a urine specimen at their local diagnostic lab, potentially avoiding the need to travel long distances to the urology clinic or hospital for investigation.

Brent Pownall, VP Commercial and Franchise at Pacific Edge, said: “This agreement highlights Cxbladder’s reach in New Zealand and draws attention to the utility of the Cxbladder for Maori and for those in more remote parts of New Zealand. Instead of travelling all the way to Whangarei to the hospital or waiting for a regional urology clinic to be scheduled, patients in the Far-North can get the Cxbladder test locally under the care of their GP thereby enabling local physicians to make timely referral decisions”

“A pilot of Cxbladder testing in the Northland region showed that more than half of patients being evaluated for haematuria or being followed up for bladder cancer could have avoided an invasive cystoscopy procedure altogether, based on their Cxbladder test results. This represents a positive outcome for regional people and gains in healthcare efficiency.”