The Pacific Edge Ltd (ASX: PEB) share price is rocketing higher on Thursday.
At one stage today, the ASX healthcare share was up 158% to 22 cents.
Its shares have pulled back since then but remain up 95% to 17 cents at the time of writing.
Why is this ASX healthcare share rocketing higher?
Investors have been bidding this ASX healthcare share today after it received some good news.
According to the release, Novitas and First Coast have decided to delay the implementation of the Local Coverage Determination (LCD) released in early June that would have seen Medicare coverage of Cxbladder cease in the United States on 17 July.
Cxbladder is a suite of non-invasive, urine-based laboratory tests that have been used by over 4,400 US-based urologists in the diagnosis and management of bladder cancer in more than 100,000 patients.
Pacific Edge advised that the US Department of Health and Human Services Associate General Counsel Janice L Hoffman said:
Details are being worked out but there is a commitment from these two MACs (same parent company) that the LCD will not proceed as is and that the LCD will go through the LCD process again with an open meeting and public comment period.
Pacific Edge’s CEO, Dr Peter Meintjes, was pleased with the news. Dr Meintjes commented:
We are confirmed in our position that a more robust procedure that includes open meeting and public comment was needed and thank Novitas for the opportunity to discuss the substance of their evidentiary review of Cxbladder products with them.
We support efforts to ensure the Medicare program only pays for genetic testing services that are analytically valid, clinically valid, and clinically useful. We will update investors as we gain further information on Cxbladder’s Medicare coverage status.
Despite today’s strong gain, this ASX healthcare share remains down 72% over the last 12 months.
