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Australian-based healthcare company Evivar Medical, officially announced today (January 25) the establishment of the Hong Kong Centre of Excellence for the management of Hepatitis B (HBV), in collaboration with the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). The new Centre will provide physicians in Hong Kong with a predictive tool for the comprehensive management of their patients' HBV drug selection.
Evivar Asia Limited was established to manage the partnerships and collaborative agreements and to coordinate the Group's Asia operations. Evivar Asia will be the collaborating partner and Licensor for the predictive tool, SeqHepB, an international database of patented Hepatitis B mutations and genetic sequencing software. This too will be made available through selected leading laboratories throughout the region.
The Associate Director-General of Investment Promotion at Invest Hong Kong, Mr John Rutherford, warmly welcomed Evivar's decision to choose Hong Kong for its first Asian operation.
Mr Rutherford said, "I am delighted to see Evivar setting up a base in Hong Kong and bringing in new clinical technology. We are particularly glad to see its collaboration with our local university. This initiative will not only benefit the patients and the healthcare sector in terms of disease management, but also serve as an excellent example to encourage international technology and knowledge exchange in Hong Kong."
CEO of Evivar Medical, Mr Bernie Romanin, remarked, "The establishment of this Hong Kong Centre of Excellence is a very important step in our long-term development in the region. We at Evivar are committed to improving the standard of care of patients with chronic Hepatitis B throughout Asia. Our team will seek to collaborate with leading laboratories across this region with a view to developing similar initiatives and collaborative partnerships. In addition, we plan to implement education and awareness programmes on drug resistance and provide technical support for the clinical management program SeqHepB."
The Centre of Excellence, located at the Hepatitis Research Laboratory in the Prince of Wales Hospital, will provide clinicians with a complete mutational profile and predictive resistance analysis for their patients' viral profile. This will enable a significant improvement in the accuracy and effectiveness of predictive drug selection.
"SeqHepB is a highly accurate tool to assist in the selection of the right drug at the right time for the patients. It will help improve drug effectiveness, reduce drug burnout and provide better disease management -- and subsequently reduce the need for liver transplants and hospitalisation," said Mr Romanin.
Evivar Medical is a joint venture between Melbourne Health (one of the?major?public health care providers in Victoria, Australia), Melbourne Health Collaborative Consortium Partners (including leading clinicians from Australia, the Netherlands, Germany and Spain) and the ATF Group (PDF) Limited. Evivar and its consortium partners have built an extensive portfolio of patents and patent applications that relate to the identification of drug resistant HBV mutants. The patents cover use of this HBV mutational data in diagnostics, therapeutics and clinical testing.
Invest Hong Kong is the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government department charged with encouraging and facilitating investment into the city by providing the support needed to establish or expand a business presence here. For more information, please visit the website at www.investhk.gov.hk.
Ends/Thursday, January 25, 2007
Issued at HKT 18:35
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