VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Oct. 08, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- AVRICORE HEALTH INC. (TSXV: AVCR) (the “Company” or “Avricore”) is pleased to announce that its wholly owned subsidiary, HealthTab Ltd. (“HealthTab”), has completed an integration with HeartEye, a UK provider of AI-based retinal cardiovascular risk assessment. The integration creates a new referral pathway into community pharmacy: people found to be at elevated cardiovascular risk by a HeartEye retinal scan at their optician can be referred to a nearby HealthTab-enabled pharmacy for further assessment and care. HealthTab and Abbott will be showcasing their turnkey pharmacy-based point-of-care testing solution at The Pharmacy Show 2026, taking place October 11–12 at the NEC in Birmingham, including the new HeartEye integration as part of the connected patient journey.

Identify, Assess, Act in the Community

HeartEye’s Dr.Noon CVD test, developed by Mediwhale, uses AI to estimate cardiovascular risk from a retinal scan taken during a routine visit to a participating optician. When a patient is flagged at elevated risk, their Dr.Noon report QR code can now be scanned into HealthTab at a nearby pharmacy. The pharmacist carries out a point-of-care cholesterol test, which feeds an automatic QRISK3 calculation, with all results displayed together on the patient’s HealthTab dashboard to provide a more complete assessment of their cardiovascular risk.

With newly qualified pharmacists in England registering as independent prescribers from September 2026, the pathway has the potential to take patients from identification and assessment through to treatment, where appropriate, within the community. This directly supports all three of the NHS 10 Year Health Plan’s major shifts: from hospital to community, from analogue to digital, and from sickness to prevention.

For pharmacy partners, the pathway brings in new patients with identified clinical need, helping them grow their clinical services and opening a new route for patients into the HealthTab network.

“Screening is only valuable if it leads to action,” said Rodger Seccombe, CEO of Avricore Health. “Too often, people found to be at risk are told to book a GP appointment, and many never do. The expanding Barts Health programme has shown what is possible when pharmacies can assess risk and, where appropriate, start treatment in the same visit. This integration extends that model to people identified through their optician, and we believe it can be replicated across other community-based screening initiatives that identify patients upstream of the pharmacy.”

HealthTab™ at the Core of Scalable, Integrated PoCT

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.

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.

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.

Commitment to Quality and Accuracy

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.

This includes centralized lot monitoring of reagents, mandated internal quality control, and regular external quality-assessment (EQA) events, ensuring that results generated across every participating pharmacy are accurate, traceable, and consistent with internationally recognized reference standards.

About Avricore Health Inc.

Avricore Health Inc. (TSXV: AVCR) is a pharmacy service innovator focused on acquiring and developing early-stage technologies aimed at advancing pharmacy practice and patient care. Through its flagship offering HealthTab™, a wholly owned subsidiary, the Company’s mission is to make actionable health information more accessible to everyone by creating the world’s largest network of rapid testing devices in community pharmacies.

Contact:

Avricore Health Inc.

info@avricorehealth.com
avricore.com

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains “forward-looking information” within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation, including statements regarding: the potential for the integration to create a new referral pathway and support the growth of pharmacy partners’ clinical services; the potential for pharmacist prescribing to enable treatment within the pathway; the anticipated benefits for patients and the NHS; the planned showcase of the integration at The Pharmacy Show 2026; and the development of further referral pathways into the HealthTab™ network. Forward-looking information can generally be identified by words such as “will,” “may,” “expects,” “plans,” “anticipates,” “believes,” “intends,” “estimates,” “projects,” “potential,” “scheduled,” “targets,” and similar expressions.

Forward-looking information is based on the Company’s current expectations, estimates, and assumptions, including that general business and economic conditions will not change materially, that the Company will be able to execute its business strategy and growth plans, that required regulatory and third-party approvals will be obtained, and that key personnel will be retained. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause actual results to differ materially, including: failure to meet regulatory requirements; changes in market conditions; potential downturns in economic conditions; dependence on key partnerships; competition; and other factors described in the Company’s public filings available at www.sedarplus.ca.

Forward-looking information is provided as of the date of this news release and the Company does not undertake to update such information except in accordance with applicable securities laws.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.