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VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Sept. 01, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — AVRICORE HEALTH INC. (TSXV: AVCR) is pleased to announce that NHS England has confirmed the national expansion of the Barts Health pharmacy cholesterol testing programme powered by Avricore’s HealthTab™ platform.

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Approximately 100 pharmacies across England will begin offering seven-minute cholesterol checks this fall as part of a national NHS initiative aimed at identifying cardiovascular risk earlier and reducing heart attacks and strokes, with this first national phase running until spring 2027.

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The rollout follows the north London programme led by Barts Health NHS Trust in collaboration with UCLPartners and HEART UK. The programme tested 2,493 patients across 61 community pharmacies between January 2025 and March 2026. Nineteen percent were identified as being at high risk of a heart attack or stroke within the next decade, with patients receiving clinical advice and referral for treatment where appropriate. At least 88 patients subsequently began statin therapy.

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The national expansion has already attracted major media attention, including coverage in The Guardian, which reported on the NHS plan to bring free high-street cholesterol testing to pharmacies across England.

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“This is a major validation of the strategy we have been executing in the UK,” said Rodger Seccombe, CEO of Avricore Health. “The Barts Health programme demonstrated that community pharmacies can deliver high-quality point-of-care testing at scale and translate those results into meaningful clinical action. NHS England is now taking that model from a regional programme to a national one. We’re proud of what the pharmacy teams in north London have achieved with our system and look forward to introducing it to the rest of the country.”

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HealthTab™ at the Core of Scalable, Integrated PoCT

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HealthTab™ provides a complete, turnkey solution underpinning national pharmacy-based PoCT networks, including best-in-class instruments, consumables, onboarding, training, and ongoing support for participating sites.

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At its centre is a secure cloud-based platform that seamlessly connects point-of-care analyzers, patient results, QC data, and pharmacist workflows, creating a unified digital infrastructure for community-based testing.

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This integrated approach ensures quality-assured testing, consistent data capture across locations, and real-time analytics to support public-health reporting and performance monitoring, while reducing implementation complexity for pharmacy partners.

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Commitment to Quality and Accuracy

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HealthTab™ is designed to meet the highest standards of analytical performance and reliability. Through its partnership with CEQAL Inc., a world-leading reference method laboratory and member of the CDC Cholesterol Reference Method Laboratory Network (CRMLN), HealthTab operates a comprehensive quality management program that mirrors the rigour of accredited clinical laboratories.