Good afternoon, welcome to the Pacific Edge 2021 annual shareholders meeting. I'm Chris Gallaher, the Chairman of the Pacific Edge Board of Directors, and I was hoping to be with you today in person. I spent the last two months in Dunedin, and it was great to be able to spend time with Dave and the team at head office.
After the announcement on Friday of the pause of the travel bubble to Australia, I made the decision to hightail it back home. Unfortunately, I'm calling in today from Melbourne, as is Bryan Williams, the Deputy Chairman as well. We're both here in Melbourne, out of lockdown now a little bit, but not able to fly back to New Zealand.
We are pleased to be able to once again invite shareholders to attend our meeting in person, as well as online, and that makes a good change after having to do it online last year. For those of you participating online, please refer to the virtual meeting online help guide if you encounter any issues, or you can phone the helpline on 0200- 200- 220. Before we get going, there are a few formalities that I would like to run through. I'll ask David Darling to perhaps help me here. If the fire alarm does go, Dave, can you indicate the exit?
Feel like an airline hostess.
Yes. Very good.
Down the back.
If you are unsure as to where to go, please follow the instructions from staff. While you're on your feet, Dave, we have bathrooms out, from memory, out the door on the right.
Correct.
There are QR codes at the front of the venue when you came in, and also in this room, for the government contact tracing app. Moving to the meeting agenda. Today is an opportunity to hear more on the progress of our company, our strategy, and our outlook. Following my address, you'll hear from our Chief Executive Officer, David Darling, before we move to shareholder discussion, followed by voting on the resolutions.
Following the presentations, you can ask questions through the online platform, and I encourage shareholders who do have questions to send them through as soon as you're able. There will also be an opportunity for you to ask questions on each resolution before I put it to the vote. If you wish to raise a question in person in the room, please indicate to staff members and they will bring you a microphone.
Voting on all resolutions will be by way of a poll. For online shareholders, you'll be able to cast your vote using the electronic voting card received when your online registration was validated. Following the voting on resolutions, we will be happy to take any general questions that you may have in relation to our company and its operations.
At the close of the meeting, I will invite those of you there in person to stay and join those members of the board in Dunedin and management to share some light refreshment. The board and management are always more than happy to talk to shareholders. Please feel free to come up and have a chat. I declare that a quorum is present and that the meeting has been duly convened. I'm going to ask Grant Gibson if we have any apologies. Grant, I don't have any.
None received.
We have no apologies. No apologies from the floor? Thank you. Moving on. The notice of meeting, which includes the explanatory notes, has been circulated to all shareholders, and I intend to take it as read. The audited financial statements for the year ended 31st of March 2021 were released on the 27th of May and included in the annual report.
The minutes of our last annual meeting on the 5th of August 2020 are available online, and hard copies are available at the meeting for anyone who wishes to take one. Your board of directors. I'm pleased to welcome the majority of our directors to our meeting today after we gathered online last year. In addition, we have Bryan Williams and myself joining from Melbourne.
Over the last year, we have continued a rejuvenation process of the board and have been pleased to welcome two new directors in recent months. Anna Stove, who is on the far, now might be left. Anna Stove. Next to her, Mark Green, who have joined the board in recent months. This is probably an opportune time for me just to run along the top, the board of directors there.
On my left anyway, David Darling, Chief Executive. Next to David is Sarah Park. Sarah chairs the Audit and Risk Committee. Next to Sarah is Anatole Masfen, who chairs the Capital Committee. You've met Mark and Anna. Bryan, perhaps wave from Melbourne. We also have, in the audience today, a number of the senior management team, some also who have been newly appointed to their roles.
Dave will speak more of that later. Both Anna Stove and Mark Green have skills and experience and capabilities which bring strength to our board, and they have already provided valuable insights in the short time they have been part of our company. Anna Stove and Mark Green will both be standing for election by shareholders today, and you will have an opportunity to hear from them directly later in the meeting.
We also have online today David Levison from San Francisco. Many of you will have seen Dave in earlier years, when he was a director of your company. We farewell David Levison from the board in November 2020, when he agreed to move into the role of Executive Chairman of our USA business.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank David for his valued and valuable contribution to our company over his five years as a director, and we're very fortunate to have been able to place David into such an important role in the USA team. David will be online for questions that anyone may have about the U.S. business later in the meeting. I've introduced our other directors.
Anatole also today retires by rotation and is standing again for re-election, and you will have the opportunity to hear from Anatole later on. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our board members who have served during the year for their counsel and support. It's been a very difficult year coping with COVID, and we did not meet in person from February last year through until June this year.
It was a very long time to be governing the company by way of Zoom. Also in attendance are our legal advisors, Anderson Lloyd, and our auditors, PricewaterhouseCoopers. We also welcome other members of our senior team, as I mentioned, and David Darling will speak more of that in his presentation. This year, you may have noticed in our notice of meeting, we included a skills matrix for the board, which identifies the competencies and skills which we believe are required to govern Pacific Edge.
Directors' capabilities are considered against this skills matrix, and it's a very important tool in our board succession planning and appointment of new directors. We believe that the current directors have the appropriate balance of independence, skills, knowledge, experience and perspectives necessary to provide the governance Pacific Edge as the company grows.
We have identified several areas where we feel we can add further depth, and any new appointments to the board will take these into consideration. Our strategy remains consistent, and it's been consistent for a long time, and that is to attain global reach for our comprehensive suite of Cxbladder products and to maximize the value of our technology for the benefit of our shareholders.
We will do this by commercializing all four of our Cxbladder tests with our focus on bladder cancer in our targeted markets around the world. We will sustain our first-mover advantage and position Cxbladder as the preferred detection and management test for bladder cancer. Lastly, we will grow the adoption of multiple Cxbladder products by large-scale institutional healthcare customers for multiple clinical needs.
Underpinning all this is the commitment to building a profitable business and delivering superior value to our patients, physicians, and most importantly, our shareholders. The year ended 31 March, 2021 was unquestionably a year of achievement for Pacific Edge. Obtaining coverage from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in the U.S. for Cxbladder Detect and Monitor at the national CMS price of $760 per test was a milestone that we have been seeking to achieve for a number of years.
Second milestone achieved was reaching commercial agreement for all of our Cxbladder tests nationally with Kaiser Permanente, one of the largest integrated healthcare organizations in the U.S. Lastly, but very importantly, the continued publication of additional clinical evidence which highlights the clinical utility of Cxbladder.
The market's response to these events was very encouraging and pleasingly, Pacific Edge was re-included in the NZX 50 Index, which resulted in a re-rating of our shares. I'm sure that many of our longstanding shareholders would have been pleased with the significant uplift in share price over the last 12 months, and we now sit as a company with a market capitalization of around NZD 900 million.
It's a substantial company. To leverage these major commercial milestones, we've progressively scaled up our U.S. operations in the second half of the year, adding more resources to maximize the opportunities ahead of us.
Our NZD 22 million placement to ANZ New Zealand Investments last year has provided the capital to fund this growth. This was a real vote of confidence in the company and its prospects by a substantial and reputable New Zealand institution, and did enable us to broaden our institutional shareholding base and increase growth capital for the company in a very cost-effective manner.
In results terms, it was particularly pleasing in the pandemic environment that we were operating in to be able to report a much stronger financial result, with growth in operating revenue and operating cash flow, and a 25% reduction in our net loss, and a significantly strengthened balance sheet. The result included a nine-month contribution from the CMS and also reflected the impact of COVID-19 on our business, with momentum at a slower pace than otherwise would've been expected in a normal operating environment.
Our vision remains for Cxbladder to be the most trusted and preferred diagnostic test for the detection and management of bladder cancer. We have a strong competitive advantage in our validated suite of products. The time and resources it would take to develop a better test than Cxbladder gives Pacific Edge its key competitive advantage.
Peer-reviewed and published clinical evidence continues to support our outperformance of Cxbladder tests, and a growing number of urologists and healthcare organizations are adopting and using our tests, particularly in the U.S. and New Zealand. We now have the reimbursement milestones in place, the clinical evidence, the infrastructure, and the resources to now build on our achievements. We have a strong outlook for the financial year that we are now in and beyond, and are very well positioned to capitalize on the opportunities available to the company.
Growth initiatives are being deployed in all of our target markets, with the U.S. remaining the primary focus. This is an exciting time in Pacific Edge's journey. Momentum is building, we now have the catalyst in place to advance our positioning as the preferred diagnostic test for the detection and management of bladder cancer globally. Turning now to our strategic priorities for the year ahead, these will be very familiar. Our first and most important priority is to execute our growth objectives in the U.S.
Second objective is to achieve guidelines recognition in the NCCN guidelines from 2B to 2A. Third is to get penetration and commercial sales in Australia, which has been a target market of our company for years. Fourth is to commence new market entry strategies where appropriate, consider how best to exploit our intellectual property across other cancers.
The progress and achievements in the last year are a reflection of the hard work, passion, and efforts of our team, who have stepped up to the plate in a very difficult year and a very testing operating environment. On behalf of the board, my thanks go to the Pacific Edge team for the contributions. I would also like to acknowledge and thank our shareholders who have continued to support us as we've rolled out our strategy.
Before handing over now to David Darling, I would just like to make a couple of comments about Dave. This will be David's last annual shareholder meeting as he retires from his position in April 2022, after 18 years at the helm, which by anyone's standards is a terrific performance. The passion, perseverance, energy that Dave has brought to his role has meant that without him, we would not be here today.
Shareholders have a lot to thank David Darling for over his 18 years in the role. Appointing the CEO is the most important job that a board does, and we now have a process in train, being led by Korn Ferry, a recruitment firm out of Melbourne, and that's underway. We are seeking a leader for our business who can take the company from the platform that's now been established to fully deliver on our potential.
This is a really exciting time for Pacific Edge and its shareholders as we move into the growth phase of our journey after such a long and protracted establishment and product proving stage. With that, I will hand over now to David Darling, our CEO. David Darling, for your, sadly, your last CEO address to an annual meeting.
Thank you very much, Chris, for those kind words. Everybody. As Chris has outlined, the COVID-19 pandemic had a transformational effect on traditional healthcare and presented both challenges and opportunities for Pacific Edge. One of the key themes to emerge over the last year has been the value of a robust and enduring healthcare system. The pandemic has accelerated the use of novel technologies and platforms, and in particular, telemedicine.
This has been further aided by the lifting of barriers to telehealth, and in the U.S., the raising of the CMS reimbursement rate for medical consultations. For some existing and new U.S. customers, Cxbladder played an important enabling role in the new telehealth environment, allowing patient evaluation and assessment to be managed remotely.
We were at a perfect stage in our commercial evolution when COVID-19 took hold, with reimbursement milestones in place, an existing system that allowed for patient in-home sampling, and a commercial agreement with the largest single validation customer in the U.S., Kaiser Permanente.
Serendipitously, Kaiser had recently completed their study of Cxbladder using the Cxbladder urine sampling system as the mechanism to collect samples from patients in their own home, and therefore were well-positioned to capitalize on its performance and benefits. The patient in-home sampling system, taking it to a commercial level, was something that our U.S. team played a major role in. They had started this process five months before COVID struck.
There were four large U.S. institutions that were using this, that were involving our company in the United States to look after the referred patients, ensure they got the sample system, the sample got to the lab, and the results got back to the urologist without having to come to town. In some cases, this meant two hours in a car to the city, two hours in consultation, and two hours back home again.
It was well and truly underway, and we were able to capitalize on that when the COVID-19 pandemic struck, both in New Zealand and other places around the world. As they've done for a number of the years, the New Zealand urologists have led the way in the adoption of Cxbladder and integration into the standard of care.
They lead the way with the use of the in-home sampling, and for some, the addition of a second product to their mainstream commercial use. During the COVID lockdowns, three of New Zealand's large public healthcare providers were actively using Cxbladder for in-home sample collection, and two public healthcare providers moved to add another Cxbladder product to their mainstream commercial use.
This has obvious benefits for the patients and frees up essential healthcare capacity. What's not to like? Over the last year, some organizations have reported up to 90% of their consultations being teleconsultations due to COVID-19 restricting access to clinics. While this percentage is expected to level out, it is also expected to remain significantly higher than pre-pandemic. The global precedent has now been locked in place, telehealth is expected to become an accepted and more usual channel for the delivery of healthcare in the future.
As Chris has outlined, we've made good progress against our strategic goals in FY 2021 and are now building on our achievements with growth firmly in our sights. Our primary focus going forward is to firstly encourage commercial use of Cxbladder by large-scale institutional healthcare organizations in each market.
Secondly, to encourage our customers to include multiple products from the Cxbladder suite of tests into their standard of care and mainstream commercial use. Our first strategic goal is to launch and commercialize all four Cxbladder products in our targeted markets around the world. We know of no other company which has created a suite of commercial molecular diagnostic products that positively impact clinical decision-making across the entire pathway in a single cancer.
Cxbladder remains the only suite of products which can be used across the full clinical pathway from evaluation through to ongoing monitoring for recurrence of cancer to address the many clinical challenges that physicians have identified for us. All four of our products are commercially available in New Zealand, three are currently available in the U.S.
We're planning to initiate the launch of our fourth product, Cxbladder Resolve, in the U.S. in this financial year, following the successful publication of its performance in the tier one journal, "The Journal of Urology." We are commercializing our suite of tests in four targeted markets, the U.S., New Zealand, Australia, and Southeast Asia. These are markets of scale and markets that have a clear path to reimbursement with a high propensity to pay strong reimbursement rates for our tests.
Adoption of Cxbladder is growing in New Zealand, with escalating momentum in the U.S. and a progression of user programs in Singapore and Australia. The market that offers us the largest and most accessible opportunity right now is the U.S., and it remains our primary commercial focus. The annual addressable market size in the U.S. for bladder cancer is estimated to be more than five million test opportunities for all of our Cxbladder products across all identified needs, with an estimated annual addressable revenue opportunity of approximately $3.5 billion.
Our second pathway to achieve commercial success is through the leverage of our first-mover advantage and positioning Cxbladder as the preferred detection and management tests for urothelial carcinoma. Pacific Edge owns world-leading technology and intellectual property, and we have a significant time-based competitive advantage.
The ability of our tests to be used across the entire clinical pathway, the multiple tests, the consistent performance, and the ease of transfer of urine samples from the patient to the lab all enhance our competitive advantage.
Commercially, we are well ahead of any molecular diagnostic competitors, with a clinical evidence portfolio of peer-reviewed, published papers supporting the repeated outperformance of Cxbladder. As we now well know, these milestones take a long time and substantial investment to achieve. As we have said, our primary focus is not just to move urologists to using Cxbladder, but to encourage use of multiple Cxbladder products from our suite and to gain inclusion in the standard of care.
Urologists and healthcare providers are becoming increasingly aware of the benefits Cxbladder offers, timely, non-invasive detection, rule out of patients who don't have disease, better management of patient, and reduction in the number of patients coming into clinics. New Zealand has been leading the way with many public healthcare providers now having more than one Cxbladder product in their standards of care. Kaiser Permanente has also recently announced it will commence commercial use of a second product, Cxbladder Triage.
The products used by physicians depends on their specific risk perspective, their specific clinical issues, and the length of time that our product has been in their market. In the U.S., the market uses Cxbladder Detect and Cxbladder Monitor. In New Zealand, the predominant use is Cxbladder Triage and Cxbladder Monitor.
In the last few weeks, a new Cxbladder paper has been accepted for publication in a high-profile urology journal, The Journal of Urology. The paper is a world first and shows how the use of three Cxbladder products can increase significantly the clinical resolution of a patient's disease state. The study evaluated the use of Cxbladder Resolve alone and in combination with other products to correctly identify those with cancer, and then to segregate those with high-impact tumors for priority investigation.
The TDR paper, as we call it, shows that the combined use of three of our Cxbladder tests using a single patient's urine sample can firstly rule out those who do not have cancer, then accurately identify those with cancer, and finally segregate out those with high-impact tumors for priority investigation.
This provides significant benefit to both physicians and patients, significantly reducing the number of patients requiring further workup while prioritizing those patients with these high-impact tumors. This is a pivotal paper for urologists outlining the significant increase in clinical resolution that can be achieved from using multiple Cxbladder products in this fashion. This is the first time the clinical benefits of this novel approach have been demonstrated.
The paper portrayed the outperformance of our Cxbladder products when combined use of the Triage, Detect, and Resolve provided a 4.8 times more effective diagnostic yield than the new AUA 2020 guidelines. This is expected to be a big help in gaining recognition of the Cxbladder products for inclusion in the AUA guidelines.
To get a paper published, the journal submits the paper to independent key opinion leader urologists, who review the clinical science and data and provide their feedback to the journal editor. The reviewer feedback on the T by D by R paper was very positive, with one reviewer highlighting the potential for the study to, "Change the diagnostic paradigm for patients presenting with hematuria, better identifying high-risk patients, and decreasing the time to tumor diagnosis."
Another reviewer commented, "This series of urine-based tests appears to represent an exciting pathway for hematuria workups, better stratifying risk of malignancy, and perhaps obviating the need for cystoscopy in the workup of many patients with hematuria." We've waited a long time for urologists to stand up and say things like that about our technology.
In the start of the process, we always understood that this was the case, but very difficult to get these guys to recognize it and stand up and say it. Now we're getting this to happen. Inclusion in medical guidelines is a progressive process. It takes time. It requires a compelling clinical evidence and always follows significant adoption by healthcare providers.
Inclusion in guidelines empowers urologists and organizations to adopt and use our products, providing them with a clear, medically recognized mandate. Guidelines also help payers recognize their obligation to reimburse medical products once incorporated into guidelines. In the U.S., Cxbladder is specifically included in the NCCN guidelines for patients being monitored for recurrence of urothelial cancer. These guidelines are widely recognized and used as the standard for clinical policy and practice in oncology by clinicians and payers in the U.S.
Several of New Zealand's public healthcare providers have integrated Cxbladder into clinical guidelines, replacing the gold standard cystoscopy in both the evaluation of hematuria and in the monitoring for recurrence of urothelial carcinoma. We are seeing growing recognition of Cxbladder in reference to high-performing biomarker technology for inclusion in urology clinical guidelines, and our focus is on gaining stronger inclusion language for Cxbladder in the near future.
Last year, we saw guideline language and processes change in both the American Urological Association guidelines, the AUA, and the EAU guidelines in Europe for hematuria and for non-muscle invasive bladder cancer, including specific references to Cxbladder studies that are currently underway and performance of Cxbladder. Our third strategic objective is to gain scale adoption by large healthcare institutions in all our targeted markets, particularly the U.S.
While these large-scale customers can take longer to bring to completion, once commercial agreement is reached, they can provide significant volume, require lower sales maintenance, and deliver more sustainable longer-term opportunities. Two big commercial achievements occurred over the last year, which are important for us. Firstly, reimbursement coverage by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, or CMS, as they are known.
Secondly, the completion of four years of due diligence and the conclusion of the commercial agreement with Kaiser Permanente. The CMS coverage inclusion also supports our negotiations with the many private insurance payers in the U.S. who provide cover for the non-CMS patients who are using Cxbladder. The impact of these payer negotiations will be to increase our coverage, and therefore reimbursement, as well as shortening the cyclical time for claims repayment and receipt of cash.
The commercial agreement with Kaiser Permanente was concluded in early June 2020, following approximately four years of due diligence. The agreement covers all four Cxbladders for use in the Kaiser Permanente Federation nationwide. Kaiser is one of the largest healthcare providers in the U.S., with over 12 million members. They chose to commence with Cxbladder Monitor, and just recently have announced that they will also be starting commercial use of Cxbladder Triage.
This is a great endorsement of our products and services from a leading healthcare provider. Our first priority last year was putting the systems, processes, and training in place to ensure we can deliver our gold standards levels of service. The pandemic pushed out the timeline and the level of work required by Kaiser to integrate our ordering and reporting systems into their healthcare IT infrastructure.
Despite the challenges that Kaiser has been enduring over the COVID-19 pandemic, Cxbladder Monitor launched, and we're seeing test volumes starting to build. We expect to see volumes grow further following the start of the use of Cxbladder Triage expected in the second quarter of FY 2022, and as COVID-19 restrictions ease.
We have a long list of large-scale customers that we like to call institutional customers in both the U.S. and our other markets who are currently starting their commercial use or evaluating Cxbladder products, including some of the most highly recognized healthcare organizations in the world, such as Johns Hopkins Medicine and the Cleveland Clinic, to name a couple on our list. Momentum is growing progressively, and the new commercial relationships and agreements that will result from these have a significant positive impact on our financial position when concluded.
Being covered for reimbursement by the CMS and having reached commercial agreement with Kaiser Permanente is definitely assisting in our negotiations with other targeted large-scale customers and payers. Both of these commercial outcomes are seen by other healthcare providers and urologists in general as being large validation ticks. In the last few months, we have announced coverage of Cxbladder by UnitedHealthcare for their Medicare Advantage policyholders.
UnitedHealthcare is the largest private healthcare provider and insurer in the U.S. We have also announced a commercial agreement with the Facey Medical Group for the use of Cxbladder Detect and Monitor. We've already provided a lot of detail in our FY 2021 performance in our recent full-year results announcement presentation and our annual report. Today, the focus is on our trajectory into this financial year.
COVID-19 had a significant impact on our performance in FY 2021, particularly the Q1 during the initial lockdown and then throughout the year, particularly in the U.S. as infection rates continued to fluctuate and states went in and out of COVID restrictions. They are still doing that today. Despite the challenges of operating in this environment, we were pleased to deliver a strong recovery to our business and a strong financial result.
It is opportune to recognize the great efforts of the Pacific Edge team for standing up, finding creative solutions, and generally just making it happen. Thank you all. For many of you will not know that our Pacific Edge scientists and frontline team were set up to provide COVID-19 testing services for New Zealand. Although we were not called upon by the Ministry of Health to provide any test services. Again, thank you to the team.
Our strong recovery from COVID-19 has continued into the first quarter of FY 2022, with test volumes ramping up as the benefits start to be realized from our investment into growing the number of our U.S. sales team, adding additional sales territories, and as the COVID restrictions ease. We've had a record quarter in both tests reported and cash receipts. Labs report has risen consistently over the last five quarters and was 179% on the same time last year. That's up 79%.
Cash receipts and customers also continue to grow as reimbursement success and volumes grow. These are 242% on the same time last year, or up 142%. Our recent progress and commercial achievements in FY 2021 underpin our future growth. We are now seeing the commercial benefits of our efforts and resources that have gone into the development and commercialization of our Cxbladder technology.
Our people, our products, our business model, and strategy are all well-proven. Adoption of Cxbladder and commercial sales are increasing. We have identified scale opportunities for growth in each of our targeted markets, and we have deployed resources to capitalize on them. We have a strong platform to grow our business with two certified labs, four class-leading products addressing a large unmet global need, key reimbursement milestones in place in the U.S., a commercial agreement with the largest single validation customer in the U.S., and a proven model with healthcare providers in New Zealand.
Our growth will be driven and supported by our leadership team, all of whom are senior executives with extensive experience in their areas of expertise. In the last year, we have expanded the team with the appointment of a number of new roles that have become a necessity as we have accelerated our commercial strategy.
In particular, in this calendar year, we have added the new roles of Chief Technology Officer, Chief Information Officer, and Chief Operating Officer, and we're pleased to have Justin, Andy, and Demi here with us today, as well as other members of our senior leadership team. We also have progressively scaled up our U.S. commercial operations during the last quarter of FY 2021.
Right now, we have a sales team of 24 specialized account managers, up from 16 last year, and we're looking to grow this number out to 28-30 over this financial year. We also have a dedicated team of reimbursement specialists to carry out negotiations with the targeted private payers to gain coverage and reimbursement where needed, and have also bolstered our clinical and customer liaison resources.
An important driver for us is the ongoing education of urologists to build awareness of Cxbladder and the benefits it can provide in their particular clinical setting. This is a key role for all of our people, and in particular, our specialized salespeople, who are able to demonstrate the financial and clinical benefits that existing customers are already receiving. For many customers, the reduction in the number of patients requiring cystoscopies and full workups has been more than offset by freeing up time to focus on higher-value clinical care and delivering a better patient experience.
Our U.S. laboratory has the capacity to process 260,000 tests per annum, which is sufficient to support the expected increase in test demand for some time yet. The New Zealand market remains the global leader for the adoption and use of our Cxbladder technology and acts as a model for other regions and healthcare providers.
Kaiser Permanente flew to New Zealand to talk to Canterbury District Health Board to understand how they put it all together and how they made it all happen. I think they thought Canterbury was a very small copy of Kaiser Permanente. The New Zealand Urology Directors have added Cxbladder to national standards of care, and in Canterbury, they have implemented new guidelines for all patients who present to the clinic with blood in their urine.
The new guidelines consist of only Cxbladder Triage plus imaging, and they replace the previous gold standard cystoscopy and all of the other tests and procedures that they used to use in that setting. We have a positive growth outlook for the company, with opportunities being addressed in each of our key markets.
The U.S. market for Cxbladder products offers us an annual addressable market size of more than $3.5 billion, so we've got some room to move there, and accordingly remains our primary focus. Key initiatives for us in the market for FY 2022 are growing the commercial adoption of Cxbladder by Kaiser Permanente and other large healthcare organizations, shifting existing customers to use more than one Cxbladder product. And we saw that happening with COVID-19 pandemic, particularly here in New Zealand. Further increasing reimbursement coverage from private payers like UnitedHealthcare, and increased U.S. guideline inclusion following the publication of new clinical evidence, further supporting the clinical utility of Cxbladder.
We saw that happening in the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly here in New Zealand. An increasing number of commercial tests from the CMS, Kaiser Permanente, and other scale payers such as UnitedHealthcare, are expected to underpin our revenue and operating cash flow growth in FY 2022 and beyond.
There are a number of catalysts that we believe will drive our growth in the U.S., particularly in the next few years, including our scaled-up U.S. sales team and back office support resources. We're becoming increasingly well-payed for the sales representative in the threshold that they need to step over before adding positive cash to our bottom line is a lot lower. A ramp-up in demand for Kaiser Permanente and the adoption of more than one Cxbladder product by new and existing customers of scale. Concluding commercial agreements with other healthcare institutions of scale, such as the recently announced coverage by UnitedHealthcare for their Medicare Advantage plans, Expansion of reimbursement coverage with other payers in the U.S.
The development and peer-reviewed publication of further clinical evidence will remain a cornerstone to commercial adoption, as will additional U.S. guideline inclusion, better inclusion language for the NCCN guidelines, and U.S. commercial launch of Cxbladder Resolve, our fourth test in the suite of products. New Zealand is our home market and is leading the way with the adoption of Cxbladder into mainstream commercial use.
There have been significant changes in the way New Zealand urologists practice urology, with Cxbladder added into the standard of care for the majority of healthcare providers, and we are now seeing an increasing number of these providers adopting more than one of our products.
Currently, more than 2/3 of New Zealand's population are covered through contracts with the public healthcare providers. We are working hard to get the remaining DHBs under contract, as well as continuing the evolution towards mainstream commercial use of more than one Cxbladder product. Australia and Southeast Asia also offer exciting opportunities for us. They are both at an earlier stage in their commercial journey, with our goal being to transition the large-scale public healthcare providers from clinical trials to a commercial customer model.
We have had some early success in contracting with private healthcare providers such as the Raffles Medical Group in Singapore. They're in four countries and 13 cities across Southeast Asia. We will be moving to consolidate this early start and grow the opportunity to other private healthcare providers of scale, many of whom have commercial businesses across Southeast Asia.
The published results from the clinical trials in Singapore will form the basis of our commercial rollout in Southeast Asia. This region is expected to become a market of significant scale for Cxbladder over time, with an accessible commercial population of equivalence to the U.S. of around 300 million people. We all remain excited about the future for our company. After many years, we are now on the cusp of realizing some of the rewards of our efforts.
When we started this journey 19 years ago, our vision was to create a better, easier, and more effective way of diagnosing cancer to ensure that people could be diagnosed and treated with the best possible care as quickly as possible. Our suite of Cxbladder products comprehensively addresses the many shortcomings of existing technologies for patients, urologists, and healthcare providers alike.
Cxbladder's outperformance has been validated and proven in multiple clinical studies and published in peer-reviewed journals around the world. All of the foundations are now in place, and we have a great team of people with proven performance delivering these outcomes. We have a huge market opportunities for our Cxbladder products, and we are just starting to scratch the surface. We're now well-positioned to accelerate our momentum and grow adoption of our novel and world-leading products.
Given that this will be my last annual shareholder meeting as CEO, I'll be here next year but won't be wearing my suit. There are many that I would like to thank. However, most of all, I would like to thank the people at Pacific Edge for their undying faith that we would prevail. Secondly, our shareholders who have been with us through thick and thin. It's been a long but ultimately rewarding journey. Thank you all. Thanks for your time today. I'll now pass you back to the Chair for the continuation of the business of the meeting.
Thank you very much, Dave. We will now move to the ordinary business of the meeting, which was outlined in the notice of meeting. I would now like to invite questions in relation to either the annual report or today's presentations from Dave and myself. There will be further opportunity to ask questions about each resolution as they are put to shareholders vote.
To take a question online, you must first register to vote before you can ask a question. If you would like to ask a question, click on the Ask a Question box either at the top or the bottom of the webpage. We've also invited shareholders to submit questions to the company prior to the meeting, and we have received several.
I'm going to ask now Grant Gibson to help us read out the questions that we have received, and I, David Darling, or any of the board members will be very happy to answer them for you. Once we've done that, we'll move to the online questions, and again, we'll ask Grant to help us negotiate our way through those, and then we'll move to the formal business of the meeting. Grant, online questions.
Okay. The first question's come in from John. "Has the board considered listing on the Nasdaq exchange?
Why don't I direct that to the Chairman of our Capital Committee, Anatole Masfen.
Can you all hear me? That's good. Look, John, and for anyone else that's interested, where we list and where we source capital and operate is constantly under review, and we spend a lot of time looking at the Nasdaq. It is quite an unusual situation, which you've got a company domiciled in New Zealand and predominantly operating in the U.S. It is something under constant review. At this stage, the board, it's a leap too far at this stage. To be quite frank, if we had jumped the company over to the U.S. at this early stage, we probably would not be around at this early stage. Look, constantly under review.
Personally, I think there's a lot going on over there with the U.S. funding and there's these special purpose SPACs being set up and the rest of it, and I'd be very nervous to be in part of that game right at the moment. Under constant review.
Thanks, Anatole. Grant, next question.
Sure. Okay, this is a question from Graham. "There's no mention of payment for the old invoices from Medicare prior to the formal acceptance. Is there any update on this?
I'm happy to take it, David Darling, or do you want to take it?
No, you take it. It's good.
David Darling, perhaps.
Okay, guys, thanks very much. As you know, when we're trying to get into the market, one of the big hurdles to get over is the inclusion in the CMS's reimbursement. Until such time as you get that inclusion, you need to provide your services and technology to CMS-based patients. Of course, we invoice those patients as we go along, and we accumulated a large number of invoiced tests. As is the usual practice, you attempt to get some form of recovery payment for that.
As outlined by Chris and others previously, this may or may not happen. This could be a big number or a small number, or zero, in fact. Our process right now is involving negotiations with Novitas, the contractor, and the CMS's national office in Washington. It's likely to go on for some time. We're hopeful of receiving something from that outcome, but nothing as yet.
Just if I could add to that, Dave, two things. That relationship that we have, supplier-customer relationship, with CMS is absolutely critical for us. Nothing we do will in any way jeopardize that relationship. Secondly, we haven't included any recovery in our budget or plans. Anything we may get as a result will be cream for us. Grant, next question.
Sure. It's a question from Tom. You've added eight sales reps in new territories. Can you give us an update on how this is starting to impact your commercial throughput?
Thank you. David Levison. One for you.
Had to get it off mute. Certainly. Thanks for the question. It is impacting our revenue and our test throughput in a couple of different ways. It is providing the test to a larger number of physicians. As you know, it takes a while for those reps to get up to speed. While each of the reps that we hire has a set of relationships in the territory of which they are responsible for, it takes a while for them to sort of get up to speed. About half of our sales force today has been with us less than a year, so they're still very much coming down the learning curve and up the ramp curve.
What we're seeing is, we're seeing increased volume in our tenured reps, as we call them, anyone that's been with us for more than a year, and our new reps, less than a year. Over the last several quarters and months, we are seeing significant, meaningful increase in the average number of tests in both those groups. We'll continue to add reps and territories that we think can be productive, and as Dave mentioned earlier, because of some of the things we've done in the back office, we can get those reps to profitability more quickly than we could have in the past.
Thank you, David.
Great. There is another question, a U.S.-based question. Is there any sign of the COVID-19 impact dissipating? How does this impact the access to healthcare providers?
Thank you. Another one for you, David Levison.
Certainly. COVID is impacting us every day, every minute of every day. If you'd asked me three months ago, I would've said generally, we were seeing opening up of offices allowing reps to come back in. Certainly over the last 30 days, that has certainly flattened out and perhaps started to go down. We are certainly seeing some areas where they're closing up again because of the Delta variant, an increase in case rates and hospitalizations.
Our reps have been just spectacular, in my opinion, about being able to pivot quite quickly, both at the beginning of COVID and then recently. We do a bunch of stuff virtually, but our reps are going in wherever they can, and it's very much office specific. In a single territory, a rep can have three offices that they can walk in anytime, and then three that they have to do everything virtually. It really is territory and office specific. We expect that over time, we'll see more and more offices opening up, but it will not be a straight line. It will certainly some bumps in the road.
Great. Thanks, David. Next question is, does the company have any business expansion plans into other addressable lucrative markets such as the U.K., Europe, China, Japan, and South Korea?
I'm sorry. I think I may have dropped out for a second or two. Grant, do we have the next question?
Sure. I'll reread that. Does the company have any business expansion plans into other addressable lucrative markets such as the U.K., Europe, China, Japan, and South Korea?
Look, I'm happy to lead off on that, and then perhaps David Darling could come in. As I said in my address, our first priority, and by far the biggest opportunity for us, is to execute what we have now in front of us in the U.S. As Dave mentioned, New Zealand is reasonably, what are we now? Almost 2/3 covered with more coming down the pipe.
We've pretty much completed New Zealand with a couple of DHBs to go. Australia. Our people in Australia have been hard hit by COVID lockdowns, and we haven't been able to make the progress there that we would like. As Dave mentioned, it's certainly a neighborhood market, very close, and one that we're very keen to conquer.
We move up into Asia and Singapore with the user studies we have going and the commercial agreements that we have in place. That's a fair handful. Those five markets, between them, offer us enormous potential. That's not the end of the story. We are thinking, as a board now, about what comes after that, what markets may come after that, what products may come after that, without taking our eye off the ball that's in front of us.
We're clear we have Japan on the horizon. Now that the U.K. has split from the European Union, it perhaps becomes more attractive rather than as it was when it was part of the European Union, tied up in a very bureaucratic health process. I'll leave it there, David. David Darling, if you want to add to that, please do.
No, that's good, Chris. Good summary. Thank you.
Okay. I think the message I do want to transmit is that we have our hands really full in executing what we have in front of us at the moment. That's where our attention is largely focused, with keeping an eye on what could come next down the opportunity pipeline.
Great.
Grant.
Thank you. I've got three more questions. Eventually, when Pacific Edge turns around to profitability, what's the company's dividend policy going to be moving forward?
Sarah Park.
I think-
Chair of our Audit and Risk Committee and well-placed to answer this one.
I think it's a very interesting question, and it's a discussion I very much look forward to the opportunity to have. At this stage, we don't have a policy as such.
That will be one momentous day when we have that decision in front of us.
Thank you. Are you able to give any guidance when the Singapore clinical study might be published? That is from Andrew.
Thanks, Andrew. Dave Darling, that's one for you, perhaps.
Actually, I'm looking down the laneway here, and I can see Tony Lock, our Vice President of Clinical, sitting here. Perhaps it's a good one for Tony.
Sure.
Good day. I'm Tony Lock. The study that you're referring to in Singapore is from four hospitals. There's about 550-odd patients recruited to it. All of the lab work is done. All of the analysis is done. What we are doing is reflecting on the data and wondering how best to package it for the best possible outcome for Pacific Edge. In terms of when exactly it will come out, we are putting together now a pack which will then be formed up into a publication and hope to get that done inside the next four or five months. That'd be my best guess.
Thanks very much, Tony. Two to go, Grant.
Great. How do you secure your intellectual property? That's from Anna.
The answer of that one, I think old Dave Darling certainly can. Bryan, that's my reason. It's something you've had a great interest in.
Yes. Well, it's through the intellectual property portfolio, our patent portfolio that the company has established is extensive, continues to grow, and we pay every care and attention to that portfolio, where we do have to protect what we do, and we're really on top of it, I think. Both from early-stage developments, current developments in our product that are underway, and then looking to what potentially we would patent in the future.
Thank you, Bryan. David, do you want to add to that? David Darling?
Sure. Oops. Yeah, sure. Just add to that.
Yeah.
Investment in intellectual property is the third-largest investment we make behind people and the amount of money that Tony Lock spends on clinical studies, which obviously underpins our clinical evidence. Very big investments on all three of those fronts, because they enable the company. The intellectual property covers those patents that Bryan Williams was just highlighting.
We've been told it's the largest patent portfolio in New Zealand. We spend a lot of time curating that. We also have a number of trade secrets, things that we don't dare put into a patent. It's quite extensive and takes up quite a bit of our time. Thank you.
Great.
Thank you. Grant, one more?
Yes, last question. What's happening in Australia with the adoption by some large hospitals?
Dave, do you want to direct that to Brent, or do you want to pick that one up?
Yeah, I think that's a great one for Brent. He's standing there holding the microphone now, so that's ideal.
It's Brent Pownall.
Yes. Brent Pownall speaking. We spoke about this this morning, and as Dave alluded to in the presentation deck, we have a number of institutional-scale customers in Australia. They're in the process of large-scale evaluations. This is about proving the product within their own institution so that they can essentially package up and build the business case for commercial adoption within their own hospital organization. From there, we look to extending, using those key hospitals in each of the states to leverage other hospitals within those Australian states to pick up the product. Thank you.
Thank you, Brent Pownall. I think, Grant, if that's the online questions dealt with, do we have any questions from people there in person? Yep. Someone will bring a microphone to you.
Oh, yeah. Thanks. Hi, I'm Danny Hawkins. This is for David Levison, actually. With the latest publication, at what stage does it become a liability for urologists in America not to use the tests, mainly with regards to the litigation aspect of things? As a side question, I'm just puzzled why the more mercenary urologists weren't using the test during COVID as a way to clip the ticket.
Sure. I can address both of those. The answer to your first question is very simple. It's the inclusion in guidelines. Sort of pre-guideline inclusion, you could argue the liability is if you do use a product that's not included in guidelines. Post-guidelines inclusion, it flips on its head. That's a general rule. Physicians do a great job of doing what they think is often best for the patient.
Sometimes that will include what's in guidelines and what's not in guidelines. Just as an example, on the cardiology side, which I spent many years in, only about 30% of the patient interactions adhere to guidelines. It comes and goes. To answer your first question is it's really inclusion in the guidelines.
On the second question about why they didn't use the in-home sampling system more in COVID, it's a great question, some did use it extensively. Others just didn't interact with the patients at all, so it wasn't used. The third part, and I hate to admit this about the U.S. healthcare system, because they were so down on the number of patients, they wanted every opportunity to generate revenue.
Revenue is generated by doing procedures in the office, and so they would, because they were so concerned about their revenue, I think many of them actually went to, as soon as they could, come back to the office, rather than do anything that was requiring them not to be in the office. As David Levison said, certainly, telehealth and telemedicine took a big step forward during COVID. It is still less lucrative to do an online call than it is to bring the patient in the office.
Thank you, David.
One here.
This guy has your question.
My name's Dave Roberts.
Hi.
I was wondering what the situation was with the Otago DHB. I believe they were not on board this time last year, and what progress has been made on getting them on board. Thank you.
That's a great one for David Darling.
Thanks. The Southern DHB, it's a bit of a nemesis for us. However, the Southern DHB have a lot of challenges. We've all seen it in the newspapers as it's been ticking over. We feel for them because in a lot of cases, we recognize that they have to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Therein lies the paradigm, and that Cxbladder is such a great opportunity. There's clearly a few sticking points in there, one of which we know about, which is the new guidelines in New Zealand call for Cxbladder Triage and imaging. They've set it up in an electronic guideline, and they've pushed it out to primary care physicians.
They say to the primary care physicians, "We will not accept a patient referred through to secondary care to the urologist unless you're positive for Cxbladder Triage or imaging." Of course, in Southern, they can't get the imaging opportunities available for primary care. They're strapped even for secondary care. That's kind of pushed them out to not be able to live that new guideline. I suspect that we're going to see some changes in Southern fairly soon for two reasons.
One, they had a change in a couple of the key people inside the Southern DHB of recent. Of course, Southern will get wrapped up into the South Island regional arm of the new national healthcare scheme. That'll become, I think, a lot more streamlined and a lot more directed from a more central position.
Remember that the urology directors, the people who set the standards of care for New Zealand for urology, are all over Cxbladder like a rash. They want this, they've outlined it, and they've locked it in. It's just now, so far, just an issue of budget and bureaucracy.
It strikes me as being a former Dunedin life that we have a lab 400 m away from the hospital, Dave, and Anyway, I won't say anymore. Any more questions?
Yeah. Hi, Ken Acheson. I guess I'd first just like to acknowledge and thank David Darling for his time over the last 17, 18 years. Congratulations, David. I'm a longstanding shareholder, so I remember when you had a lot less gray hair than you do now, so well done.
I guess my question, and not to be too provocative, is that given that you're in a growth cycle, with the company more around commercialization, scaling, and well done doing the analysis of your board skills, and in all due respect to those people who have got fantastic skills, is it a little bit of a concern that the lowest rating on that was actually new market development?
I'm happy to pick that one up, and Ken, assure you that the next appointment we make to the board, will meet that test, will meet that requirement.
Good question.
Is there any more color than that? We have David Darling comes off the board in April next year, and we will be replacing Dave, and we have in mind to replace him with someone that brings those skills to the table.
Also just to reiterate, the senior executive team in this company have got excellent skills in entering new markets and growing our business. They've got a proven performance there. From that perspective, fantastic.
Look, I can't let it go without saying that Dave has agreed to remain available to us on a consulting basis after his retirement. As we all know, Dave has shown the way in developing new markets. We'll continue to have access to his expertise for a period after he retires in April next year. Right. Anything more from the floor?
All right. There is one more question to come in.
One more? Okay. Sure.
Do you intend to expand into new products? If so, what do you foresee as future growth?
Dave Darling, you get to have the last question.
Thanks very much, Chris.
That's on the back of we just, as a board, had a look at, that exact same question one week ago. Dave, over to you.
Sure. Thanks, Chris. Guys, what you've seen with the company is this ability to build these tools. The wherewithal, the skills, the capability, the science, it's all in place. In some ways, we have that capability looking for another cancer. That's an opportunity. We really haven't finished skinning the urothelial carcinoma space.
There are a few opportunities that we've identified. Some of the relationships between detection and treatment or management remain unanswered. It's kind of the tough end of the spectrum. It's great to find it, but it's also very good to be able to treat it and monitor the response to the treatment. We're gonna continue our efforts there. We've got a few things in the pipe.
We have some new ways of coupling up new technology together to make our existing products smarter, sharper, better. You'll see some progression over the next a couple of years as they come to bear. Yeah, it's an exciting opportunity. We have intellectual property in several other cancers as you know. We started our life with our gene expression work in five cancers, colorectal cancer, endometrial cancer, melanoma, gastric cancer, and bladder cancer.
We hold intellectual property on all of those. We have signatures that are partially tested or developed. We, yet we may choose another cancer. Yet to be decided. Lots of work going on. Lots of smart guys thinking about that on a daily basis. Thanks, Chris.
Thanks very much, Dave. If that is the last question, thank you to those who raised the question and to the various members of the board and management who answered them. Now is the formal part of the meeting. I would like to move to the resolutions that were sent out in the notice of meeting. Voting on each of the resolutions in the notice of meeting will be by way of poll.
All resolutions are ordinary resolutions and therefore must be passed by a simple majority of votes cast by shareholders who are entitled to vote and voting on the resolution at the meeting. Only shareholders, proxy holders, or corporate representatives of a shareholder may vote at today's resolutions.
To vote online, click on the Get a Voting Card icon in the online meeting platform and supply your shareholder number or proxy number to validate, then mark your voting card in the way you wish to vote by clicking For, Against, or Abstain. Once you have completed your selection, please click Submit Vote at the bottom of the card to lodge your vote.
If you do have any difficulties, please contact the helpline number displayed in the top right of your screen. The result of today's voting will be posted to the NZX 50 Index as soon as we are able. Proxies have been received in respect of approximately 309 million shares. I'll just check, Grant, any update to that number or that's the current number?
That's still the current number.
Okay. 309 million shares have been proxied, being approximately 43% of the issued capital of the company. As indicated on the proxy form, I intend to vote all undirected proxies that I have received as Chairman in favor of the resolutions before the meeting, except for resolution four, from which I will abstain. The results of the proxies will be displayed following the voting.
Moving into the resolutions. As a board, we regularly review our membership to ensure that the appropriate skills, capabilities, experience, and knowledge are in place to provide effective governance of the company's strategy and commercial progress. Today we have one director who is retiring by rotation and standing for re-election by shareholders, and two new directors who are standing for election following their appointment to the board during the year. Resolution one.
The first resolution is in relation to the re-election of Anatole Masfen as a Director. Anatole is the co-founder of Artemis Capital, a private equity investment firm based in Auckland, and sits on the boards of a number of private and public companies across a range of industries, and his broad and significant investment expertise is of much value to Pacific Edge. Anatole is our longest serving Director and has extensive knowledge and an in-depth understanding of the company, its strategy, and the markets it operates in. He's been a Director since 2008.
I should just qualify what I said earlier, he's the longest serving non-executive Director, David Darling. We believe his experience and institutional knowledge of the business is a significant benefit at a time when we are rejuvenating the board and are welcoming new Directors and will soon be farewelling David Darling.
We regularly review board membership to ensure that we have the appropriate skills and thinking, and consider Anatole to be a valuable contributor to Pacific Edge. The board considers him to be independent and unanimously supports his re-election. In support of that, I would like to ask Anatole to say a few words.
Thanks, Chris. Look, I've only just got a few things to say, but I'm extremely proud to have been on the board for 13 years. I do genuinely, I'm very proud of what Dave and what all the team at Pacific Edge have achieved thus far. It hasn't been an easy road. That said, I relish the opportunity to continue, if re-elected, on the board for at least the immediate future.
As has been alluded to, we have a sort of succession planning process that's very active on the board. It's not easy to get people with a lot of time and expertise and whatever else in the startup phase of these sort of companies, because there's an extremely large amount of personal and risk involved, reputational and other risk.
I'd like to say that I'm extremely encouraged with the new directors we've enticed onto the board and their capability set. My time to depart from the board will come, but I do believe that there are quite a few changes have been made on the board, and my continuity for the immediate future is a good thing. I'm still absolutely committed to the time that I spend and my role on the board.
I think that for the age and stage of the business, the board sort of has the requisite competencies and skill sets required at this stage for good governance. One of the questions from the floor was about new market development and skill sets going forward. David Levison has came off the board, so that's probably where that hole sort of existed.
As the company develops from now, I'd expect to see one or even more directors come and go from the board each year as it evolves. As well, I had a question earlier on about sort of where we're listed and whatever else. Is it the Nasdaq? Is it other markets or whatever else? As we grow out the U.S. and look into Asia and other markets, we're really gonna want representation and expertise in that area. Anyway, I'd like to say I'm fully committed to the next transitional phases. I promise not to be here forever. I still believe I've got plenty to offer. If you'll have me, I'd like to put myself up for re-election.
Thank you very much, Anatole. Can I ask if there are any questions from the floor in relation to the reappointment of Anatole? I thought I saw a hand go up at the front. No questions? On that basis, I'll give you a second to do that before we move to the next resolution.
Resolution two is for the election of Anna Stove. Anna was appointed in March this year as part of the board rejuvenation process. She has global executive experience and a successful 25-year track record in leading and driving transformational change within the healthcare sector. Anna has held a number of governance roles with private and listed organizations and is the most recent chair of Global Women New Zealand, and is also a director of Rua Bioscience and the TAB New Zealand.
Anna was the general manager of GlaxoSmithKline in New Zealand for seven years, and prior to that, held a number of senior roles with multinational science-led healthcare companies across Europe and Asia. Her extensive international experience in the science and healthcare sectors is of much value to Pacific Edge as we continue with our growth strategy. The board has determined that Anna Stove is an independent director and unanimously supports her election. I now hand over to Anna to say a few words.
Thanks, Chris. I'm thrilled to have joined Pacific Edge at such an exciting time. The team have done a remarkable job and really laid the whole groundwork. Now it's the time to accelerate launches and expand into new markets. As Chris has just alluded to, my background is in global pharmaceutical sales and marketing. Ken, you'll be delighted that it's in new market development.
That's, I think, one of the key reasons I've been brought on. I've got a real track record for disrupting the current environment to ensure that patients have access to the best healthcare. I think Cxbladder is a game changer. We owe it to not only patients, but also to shareholders that this product is the gold standard and used first line before cystoscopy. I've really enjoyed my last four months. The board and company have been really welcoming, and I hope you tick that box. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Anna. Are there any questions, either online or from the floor on Anna's election? No. Thank you. Could you please now select either for, against, or abstain for resolution two. I'll give you 30 seconds to do that. The next resolution three, is for the election of Mark Green to the Board. Mark was appointed to the Board in May this year.
He's an experienced corporate finance professional with 25 years of experience in the Australasian capital, corporate, and financial markets. He was an executive director for investment banking at Goldman Sachs, where he worked for more than 20 years and has been involved in many large New Zealand transactions, including the IPOs of Meridian, Mighty River Power, and Vector.
Mark is a Director of a number of entities, including being Chair of Astrolabe VC Investment Committee, and is a Director of Mary Potter, which is a charitable organization. Mark's significant capital markets and corporate finance experience fills a skill set identified by the Board that was needing of strengthening. He is a strong contributor. The Board has determined that Mark is an independent director and unanimously supports his election. With that, could I invite Mark to say a few words, please?
Thank you, Chris. One of the things that I did was I gave a copy of what I was thinking about saying to Chris beforehand, and he went and stole all the content. However, I would like to start by thanking Chris and the existing board members for supporting my reappointment and choosing me to put me forward to shareholders. Your company is unique and a New Zealand success story.
It sought to add value not only to shareholders, but to all stakeholders involved in the business. This was one of the key aspects that attracted me to be a director of your company when I was initially approached. Your board has an enviable set of medical, scientific knowledge, and commercial acumen, and governance skills.
However, one of the key areas that was proactively identified by your directors that I understood led them to inviting me to join your board was capital markets and corporate finance experience. In these areas, as Chris mentioned, I've had the privilege to work in the Australasian financial markets for nearly 25 years, a bit over. 20 years of these I spent with the global investment bank, Goldman Sachs.
Over my career to date, I've been involved with many of New Zealand's preeminent companies and their boards and management, and also had the opportunity to work on some of New Zealand's largest transactions, including, as Chris mentioned, the government IPOs of Meridian, Mighty River, and also Vector. I've also been involved in many domestic and international mergers, acquisitions, financing, and debt issues, both public and private.
I have a commerce degree from Auckland in accounting and finance, together with a law degree. As Chris mentioned, I am a director of a number of companies, including Mary Potter Holdings, which is a charitable entity for underprivileged women and girls, and also of Astrolabe Venture Capital Investment Committee. Over my career, I have had the opportunity to meet many business people, board members, senior executives, one of which was a gentleman called Rob Campbell.
Many of you might have heard of him. Some may be even lucky enough to know him. Mr. Campbell recently shared some thoughts in a piece of writing that he said, "A director should be there because they genuinely care about the business succeeding and meeting the interests of stakeholders." I would like to think that for all of my governance roles, I hold myself to this standard. Should you, the shareholders, choose to reappoint me, I would look to continue to hold myself to the standard for you. Thank you, Chris.
Thank you very much, Mark. Any questions in relation to the election of Mark to the board? No. Okay. If not, can I ask you, as for the previous resolutions, to mark your vote. Okay, moving to resolution four, directors' remuneration. Resolution four relates to a proposed increase in directors' remuneration. Details of this resolution have been provided in the notice of meeting, and a summary of the independent report from Strategic Pay has been made available to shareholders via our website.
In summary, the company is seeking to increase the aggregate pool of directors' fees from NZD 311,000 to NZD 465,000. This is below the level recommended by the independent remuneration experts, Strategic Pay Limited. In fact, it's below the low end of the range that they recommended. It's also below the lower quartile of peer organizations from within the NZX 50 Index , taking into consideration market capitalization and organizational dimensions.
Since the last increase in directors' remuneration, the board has been rejuvenated and expanded with several new directors. The company has entered into a new phase in the delivery of its global strategy and has now entered the NZX 50 Index. As I mentioned at the outset, I will not be voting my proxies in relation to this resolution, but I'm happy to take any questions from the floor on resolution four for the increase in directors' remuneration. Thank you.
If there are no questions, may I invite you to select either for, against, or abstain for resolution four. The last resolution five, relates to the reappointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers as auditors of the company and to authorize the directors to fix their remuneration. I now put the resolution to the meeting. Are there any matters for discussion or questions from the floor in relation to the reappointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers?
That being so, can I invite you to please select either for, against, or abstain for resolution five. Online shareholders should now submit your votes, and voting will be open until the close of the meeting. For those of you in the room today, please complete your voting forms, which will be collected by the share registrar. Voting on all resolutions will be by way of poll and will include proxy votes received by the due date, and results of the voting will be announced on the NZX 50 Index after the conclusion of the meeting.
That brings to an end the formal part of the meeting, and I'm now opening up to our shareholders to ask any questions they would like on any matters that haven't been covered. I'll ask Grant to let us know whether we have anything online before I open it up to those present in the audience.
Just one further question come in.
Yeah.
As a longtime shareholder, I'd like to congratulate all staff at Pacific Edge for the lift in performance. With the growth, when do you anticipate the company becoming profitable?
I suspect if I look around our board table, no one wants to take that one. Dave, do you mind if I take that one?
Sure. Absolutely, Anatole.
Yeah. It's a very interesting question because there's two ways you can look at this. It's sort of the old school way of, do you want to make money in the short term, or do you want to create value in the long term? This is a very long game. It's been a lot longer than some of the patience of some of the shareholders over time.
Look, it depends how you measure profitability, but we'd be reluctant to let new markets or opportunities pass us by, if we were able to capitalize on those in the short to medium future. It is definitely our intention to be profitable. It's part of one of the many variables in the mix. Dave, do you want to add a little bit to that?
Just a quick comment. Thanks. Our accountant, Chief Financial Officer, would tell us that it's when our revenue exceeds our expenditure, would be the glib answer that he would give us, probably. I'll just let it rest there. Obviously, we're striving every day to sell more of these tests, put them into the hands of more urologists, and at the same time, we run a very lean show.
The guys work some long hours. Huge credit goes to people in the U.S. like Jackie Acheson , who's the Vice President of Sales in the U.S., and the team of guys on the ground who do this on an everyday basis. Brent Pownall in Australia, Brent Pownall, who looks after the New Zealand scene now that Brett is no longer here, but in Australia. Yeah, it's an endeavor that we all strive for on a daily basis, but certainly, as Anatole outlined, we're in for the long game.
Okay. I think we've lost Chris. I might be the non-frozen version of Chris. Which is why I've been looking at my iPad a little bit, just following where we're at. Grant, are there any other questions?
No further questions.
Therefore, if no questions, thank you everyone for attending. I therefore call the 2021 annual meeting of the shareholders of Pacific Edge closed.