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Medical Services
International
China Project Update and Summary
March 23, 2005
Medical Services International Inc. announced today that its China
project, which has involved marketing the Company's VScan HIV 1&2
Rapid Test Kit to various regulatory authorities in China, has reached
operational status. For the last two years the Company has volunteered
its VScan HIV 1&2 test kits to repeated government testing and
regulatory scrutiny in China, with the end result being an
overwhelming approval by Chinese officials-mostly due to VScan's
cost-effectiveness and its overall accuracy rating of 99.8%.
Based on information supplied to the Company by Chinese officials, no
other rapid test kit for HIV 1&2 has ever achieved results as high as
those achieved by Medical Services' VScan HIV test kit. In December
2004 the VScan HIV 1&2 test kit was granted approval from regulatory
authorities, and in January of 2005, it was announced that the kits
were to be utilized by nine "blood bank" facilities in China.
In addition to those milestones achieved in December and January, here
is a summary of recent announcements and accomplishments made by the
Company since the beginning of this month (March 1, 2005):
1) Chinese officials have granted the Company a contract to
supply 10 Chinese Provinces with 3.6 million VScan HIV 1&2 test kits
per year, for the next three years. This contract has a total value of
US$25.5 million, based on an assessment of the contract performed by
an independent accounting firm. In addition, the assessment also
revealed that Medical Services would realize $4,331,000 in gross
profit per year from the sale of those 3.6 million kits.
2) The Company has been asked by Chinese
officials to submit its TB, Dengue
Fever, Hepatitis B and Malaria test kits for regulatory approval. The
Company anticipates that it will receive approval of at least the
VScan TB test kit early in Quarter 1 of the upcoming new fiscal year.
3) The Company has begun shipping its VScan TB Rapid Test Kits
to Chinese
hospitals on an experimental basis. Currently both the TB and Hepatitis B
test kits are being evaluated.
As a result of these recent accomplishments, Medical Services is now
issuing the following projections:
1) As the Company's HIV Test Kit program becomes active,
and hospitals
utilizing the kits are reporting positive reviews, Medical Services
anticipates acquiring additional contracts for the kits from those
provinces not included in the initial ten provinces designated by
Chinese officials.
2) Based on all of the Company's existing contracts, plus
additional
orders that have been recently placed by Chinese agencies and by other
parties, Medical Services is now projecting gross sales of
approximately US$10.9 million for the upcoming fiscal year scheduled
to begin July 1, 2005.
3) Should approval of the Company's TB test kits be
achieved in Quarter 1
of the upcoming fiscal year, it is reasonable to expect that the
Company will generate an additional $2.5 million in sales from the
VScan TB test kit.
The Company has high expectations for steadily increasing orders and
contracts from China over the next three years. In addition, recent
regulatory approvals in India, Nigeria, Congo, and 10 other countries
for the VScan HIV test kits, lead Medical Services to estimate that it
will most likely need to produce in excess of 6.5 million test kits to
fulfill orders in the next fiscal year. The Company is currently
seeking approval for its kits in 19 additional countries worldwide.
About VScan ™
The VScan™
rapid test kit is a single use, easy to use, test for the screening of
HIV 1&2, Hepatitis B&C, Tuberculosis (TB), Dengue Fever and West Nile,
Malaria, Syphilis, and Prostate Cancer. The kits cannot be sold in
Canada.
For further information contact:
Robert Talbot at 780-430-6363 or
Bill Whitehead, Jr., 416-822-5883
Medical Services International Inc. trades in the United States on the
NQB Pinksheets under the symbol "MSITF". |
