Cancer screening device developer Mirxes Holding has won approval from Beijing to launch a gastric cancer test, the first blood test for the disease in China’s vast oncology diagnostics market.
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Its leading product, GastroClear, an in-house-developed non-invasive blood test, was approved by the National Medical Products Administration of China, the Singapore-based micro ribonucleic acid (miRNA) technology firm said in a filing to Hong Kong’s stock exchange on Thursday.
“GastroClear is the world’s first microRNA blood test approved for the early detection of gastric cancer, evaluating gastric cancer risk by detecting 12 gastric cancer-associated miRNA biomarkers,” it said.
“The company will continue to expand its investment in scaling commercialisation in China, including increasing the size of its sales team and enhancing local production capacity.”
Gastric cancer was the fifth leading cause of cancer deaths in 2023 globally, and ranked fifth in terms of global incidences that totalled around 1 million among all new cancer cases reported that year, according to Frost & Sullivan.
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The combined gastric cancer screening market in China, Japan, Southeast Asia and the US grew by an average annual rate of 4.1 per cent to US$15.2 billion from 2019 to 2023, and was forecast to expand to US$25.4 billion by 2033, Mirxes’ listing prospectus said, citing the market research firm.