ASX Health Stocks: Kazia says goodbye to the ASX; IMEXHS wins $2m contract in Colombia

Kazia to de-list from ASX and maintain its NASDAQ listing
IMEXHS wins $2m contract with Colombia’s National Police Force
Pacific Edge says its test volumes fell in Q2

Kazia to de-list from ASX

Oncology-focused drug development company Kazia Therapeutics (ASX:KZA) has surprisingly announced its intention to de-list from the ASX.

Kazia says its board has ultimately determined that the costs, administrative burden and commercial disadvantages of remaining listed on ASX outweigh any benefits of a continued listing.

The company says continued listing would incur considerable costs, including listing fees, at a time when Kazia is seeking to minimise its expenditure.

Further, the board believes that delisting from ASX whilst retaining its NASDAQ listing will enable Kazia to have access to a deeper market that better understands and values biotech businesses, thereby allowing it to more readily raise more capital on better terms from a wider investor base.

Aussie shareholders will be able to sell their ASX shares now, or wait for conversion into NASDAQ shares.

Kazia has an ongoing Phase 2 study (PNOC022, NCT05009992) of paxalisib, an investigational drug for the treatment of diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) and other diffuse midline gliomas (DMGs).

IMEXHS wins $2m contract in Colombia

IMEXHS (ASX:IME) announced that RIMAB, the company’s wholly owned subsidiary, has secured a new $2m contract with Colombia’s National Police Force, its largest contract to date with this institution.

Under the agreement, IMEXHS’s Enterprise Software will be implemented at a new Police Hospital in the Southern region of Bogota. In all, the company will provide radiology outsourcing services to circa 48,000 patients.

The 15-month agreement is expected to contribute $1.6m in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) to the company.

“This significant partnership highlights the trust and confidence that one of Colombia’s most important institutions places in IMEXHS, which underscores the quality of our radiology services and the advantages offered by our Enterprise Imaging technology,” said IMEXHS co-founder and CEO, Dr Germán Arango.

Pacific Edge sees decline in Q2

Cancer diagnostics company Pacific Edge (ASX: PEB) announced that test volumes processed at its laboratories in Q2 of FY24 fell 12% to 8,525 from the prior quarter.

However, the volume of tests processed in Q2 was 8% higher on the 7,864 tests processed in the pcp.

Pacific says the decline QoQ was due to the reorganisation of its US operations, which weighed on sales activity in August and early September.

Meanwhile, volumes were also impacted by some uncertainty among physicians and healthcare providers over Cxbladder’s coverage status following the Medicare non-coverage determination in June by Novitas, and then its July withdrawal.

Pacific’s flagship product is the Cxbladder, a urine-based genomic biomarker test for the detection and surveillance of bladder cancer.

In the US, Cxbladder is being used by over 4,400 urologists in the diagnosis and management of more than 100,000 patients, including the option for in-home sample collection.