The United States Patent and Trademark Office granted Pacific Edge Limited, a cancer diagnostics company, US Patent Number 8,822,149 covering "Prognosis Prediction for Melanoma Cancer." The patent covers the technology being used to develop a melanoma prognostic test that will enable clinicians to distinguish aggressive and life threatening melanomas from those that are not as aggressive.

The test applies a gene signature to a tissue sample taken from the melanoma to detect its aggressiveness, allowing clinicians to prescribe the appropriate level of treatment. Specifically, the test in development identifies aggressiveness in Stage III melanomas.

Pacific Edge partnered with the Ludwig Institute of Cancer Research, the world's largest not-for-profit cancer research organization, to develop the technology. According to the company, this partnership has enabled Pacific Edge to develop its prototype product for detecting aggressiveness in Stage III melanomas.

The United States is the third jurisdiction after China and New Zealand to grant patent protection for the 'Prognosis Prediction for Melanoma' test, which is in the development stage.

The melanoma test is one of several cancer products that the company has worked up to prototype level prior to focusing resources on the successful launch and further development of its Cxbladder technology for detecting and managing bladder cancer. Cxbladder_detect is now being commercialized in the United States, New Zealand, Australia, and soon in Spain. The second product in the program, Cxbladder_triage, is scheduled for commercial release in New Zealand later this year.

The company's intellectual property portfolio continues to grow and includes patents for a gastric cancer test as well as melanoma and bladder cancers.