CombiMatrix Diagnostics receives final licensure documentation and approvals to begin Medicare billing

CombiMatrix Corporation (Nasdaq:CBMX) announced today that its laboratory services subsidiary, CombiMatrix Diagnostics, has received the final licensure documentation and approvals from Medicare in order to begin billing for its suite of array-based diagnostics tests.

"We have publicly disclosed that our Company continues to make significant progress on the reimbursement front," stated Dr. Amit Kumar, President and CEO of CombiMatrix Corp. "As Medicare is a large payer of services for individuals over 65 and the bulk of cancer patients are over 65, this step is a major accomplishment for the Company's commercialization efforts. While this development will not significantly affect our developmental tests, we believe that certain barriers to the utilization of our cancer tests have now been eliminated. As we continue our restructuring process, we are pleased to report on the progress of our parallel reimbursement activities which will drive the acceleration of our diagnostics commercialization efforts," concluded Dr. Kumar.

Dr. Mansoor Mohammed, President and CEO of CombiMatrix Diagnostics added, "In order to effectively build successful sales distribution partnerships, comprehensive reimbursement coverage is necessary. In particular, oncology-related sales are often predicated by Medicare coverage determinations and a company's ability to bill for related services. This recent advancement provides us with a reimbursement environment that allows us to execute our oncology business strategy," concluded Dr. Mohammed.