Announcements – Press Release

7th February 2006

NZX Release Pacific Edge Biotechnology

David Darling, Chief Executive Officer
Trevor Scott, Chairman

Pacific Edge Biotechnology Limited wish to advise that, in conjunction with their collaborators in New Zealand and Europe, it has recently completed the first phase of the development of a prognostic assay for colorectal cancer. The final phase requires a prospective clinical trial and the Company is now moving on to clinical trial discussions with third parties. The research teams, led by Professor Tony Reeve, have developed two gene signatures that provide the basis for a prognostic test for determining the risk to the patient of the tumour aggressively moving to other parts of the body. Successful prospective clinical trials will provide a solution to the clinicians need for this predictive capability and would be expected to flow directly to commercialisation.

Colorectal cancer has a large impact worldwide with over 1.1 million new cases annually. It is anticipated that this year over 530,000 people, globally, are expected to die from colorectal cancer. Colorectal cancer has particularly high incidences in Japan, Australasia, Europe and North America and products of this nature are expected to have a significant impact on a patient's prognosis.

This prognostic assay for colorectal cancer joins the Company's bladder cancer assay, uRNA™. uRNA™, is a fast, non invasive assay that measures the activity of up to six genes from a small sample of the patients urine. The company expects to start patient recruitment for clinical trials of uRNA™ in New Zealand in June of this year. This represents a major milestone for the company.

Bladder cancer is the ninth most common cancer worldwide with over 360,000 new cases of bladder cancer detected annually and approximately 145,000 deaths. Bladder cancer is a disease of the industrialized world and developed countries have approximately six times the incidence of bladder cancer compared to undeveloped countries, with the highest incidence in Europe.

There are approximately 500,000 bladder cancer patients alive in the US at any one time and the company estimates that annually, there could be up to 22 million assays required for diagnosis and monitoring of bladder cancer worldwide.

Significant interest is being expressed in the development of the Company's gastric, bladder and colorectal products. Discussions are ongoing with potential commercialisation partners with interest expected to increase as the clinical trials for these products, progress. Several early stage offers have been received by the Company however it has been decided that full value recognition will be best achieved following the completion of the clinical trials.

Pacific Edge Biotechnology Ltd, is a biomedical company specialising in the development and commercialisation of diagnostics and prognostics for human cancer. The Company is also actively working on the research and development of gastric cancer, endometrial cancer and melanoma products.