First-Ever Program in the Country to Offer At-Home Self-Collection of Samples for HPV Testing

SINGAPORE, Feb. 21, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company) (NYSE: BDX), a leading global medical technology company, today announced a strategic partnership with Camtech Health, a digital health company focused on at-home health testing, to advance cervical cancer screening by offering the first-ever option for women in Singapore to self-collect a sample in the privacy of their own home.

The program combines the Camtech Health HPV (human papillomavirus) test for self-collection with the BD Onclarity™ HPV Assay, which is a clinically validated test that can simultaneously detect 14 high-risk HPV strains (or "genotypes"). The program objective is to improve the rate of cervical cancer screening in Singapore, where less than half of eligible women are currently being tested.

"For women in Singapore, lack of time, embarrassment, fear and inconvenience are among the key barriers to screeningⁱ, and before now, Singapore only offered HPV testing via hospital or clinic settings with a speculum examination and a clinician collection," stated Dr. Jeff Andrews, vice president of Global Medical Affairs at BD. "Cervical cancer is preventable, precancer is curable, and programs like this help to support the national goal of cervical cancer elimination. Not only does self-collection afford women greater access to HPV testing by enabling them to collect a sample in privacy at a time and place of their choosing, but they can also feel confident that the reliability of self-collected samples is comparable to those collected by a clinicianⁱⁱ."

In late 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) launched its Global Strategy to Accelerate the Eliminat...