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HealthLinx (ASX: HTX) has gained the experience of former business development and intellectual property manager for Prima BioMed Vanessa Waddell with her appointment as general manager for Australian Operations.

Waddell's experience in the immunology sector, specifically oncology and more specifically in the development of ovarian cancer therapeutics, will be invaluable to HealthLinx as it continues the development and commercialisation of its lead product, OvPlex™.

She brings to the role more than 15 years of industry experience, including seven years at executive management level.

Greg Rice, chairman professor, commented on the appointment: "The Board strongly believes that Vanessa Waddell's experience in the biotech industry and, more specifically, ovarian cancer diagnostics will ensure that she will be able take the company to its next stage of development."

Waddell's other previous appointments include chief executive officer of Velacor Therapeutics, a private company focused on oncology and dementia drug development, and director of operations for a venture capital funded oncology drug discovery and development company.

Current managing director Nick Gatsios will step down from the role as of 30 June 2012, but will remain as a director of HealthLinx.

Expanding OvPlex™ sales to the South Korean market

Waddell's appointment comes at a time when HealthLinx is moving closer to expanding sales of OvPlex™ to another jurisdiction with positive preliminary findings from an analysis of 220 patient samples required for a pivotal Korean Food and Drug Administration (KFDA) study.

This study is important because it paves the way for HealthLinx to seek regulatory approval of OvPlex™ in yet another jurisdiction, South Korea.

OvPlex™ has already been approved for sale and is available in the UK, Australia, Singapore and Malaysia. First sales of the test will begin in India from August, and in Spain in the second half of this year.

OvPlex™ is a diagnostic test that measures levels of five proteins in a patient's blood. One of the proteins is CA125, which has been used for several years for the detection and monitoring of ovarian cancer.

A new diagnostic algorithm generated from interim data collected from 742 patient samples from the ongoing OvPlex™ multinational trial was used to predict the status of the South Korean sample cohort.

The interim analysis demonstrates that the use of OvPlex™ reduced the number of false positive diagnoses when compared to the CA125 test alone.

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