GeneNews completes deal to bring ColonSentry to China

GeneNews (TSX:GEN) has executed a formal marketing partnership agreement with GeneDiagnostics, a private clinical research and services company in China, to market ColonSentry, the world’s first blood-based test to determine a person’s current risk for colorectal cancer.

Under the accord, GeneDiagnostics has obtained non-exclusive rights to market and sell the ColonSentry test in Shanghai and the provinces of Zhejiang and Jiangsu.  GeneDiagnostics is targeting the fourth quarter of 2010 for the test’s commercial launch.

“The incidence of colorectal cancer in China has risen dramatically in recent years and will likely continue to rise over the next two decades as the Chinese increasingly adopt Western lifestyles and diets”, GeneDiagnostics President Dr. Mark Han said in a statement.

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Gailina Liew, COO of GeneNews, said ColonSentry  “can be easily incorporated into a routine physical examination to alert doctors and patients to move forward to colonoscopy.”

According to the Chinese Anti-Cancer Association, the annual growth rate for colorectal cancer in China is 4.2%, more than double the global average of 2%, resulting in roughly 400,000 new cases of colorectal cancer in China each year.  The total number of colorectal cancer patients in China has exceeded the total in the United States and onset of the disease in Chinese patients is about 10 years earlier than observed in North America and Europe.