Appointment of Scientific Adviser

RNS Number : 9755C

Angle PLC

24 March 2014

 



For immediate release

24 March 2014

ANGLE plc

("ANGLE" or "the Company")

APPOINTMENT OF SCIENTIFIC ADVISER

ANGLE plc (AIM: AGL), the specialist medtech company, is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr Clive Stanway as a Scientific Adviser to the Company with immediate effect.

Dr Stanway is currently Chief Scientific Officer of Cancer Research Technology ("CRT"), the technology development and commercialisation arm of Cancer Research UK.  He is an expert in cancer drug discovery and a key part of his current role is working closely with major pharmaceutical partners.

Dr Stanway has extensive knowledge and experience of cancer research, detailed understanding of the drug discovery and development process, and worldwide contacts with major pharma development groups.

Recently Dr Stanway has been engaged in raising the scientific profile of CRT with the pharmaceutical industry; his efforts have led to many projects being in late stage confidential discussion with potential major pharma partners and several partnerships.  He has also driven an internal CRT project addressing cancer immunomodulation bringing together different technologies and expertise leading to a compound now being prepared for a Phase 1 trial.

The annual research spend of Cancer Research UK is in the region of £375 million and CRT has annual revenues of approximately £50 million.  Prior to becoming Chief Scientific Officer of CRT, Dr Stanway established and led the drug discovery and biotherapeutic discovery activity of CRT, which is now partnered with AstraZeneca, FORMA Therapeutics and Teva Pharmaceuticals.

ANGLE is working on demonstrating the importance of the Parsortix circulating tumour cell (CTC) harvesting capability to the drug development programmes of some of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies, and has identified this as a key area of commercialisation for the Parsortix system. The aim is that CTCs harvested from patient blood by the Parsortix system, the "liquid biopsy", are analysed to provide personalised cancer care by identifying patients that will benefit from particular drugs.

There are multiple ways in which the Parsortix system may be used by major pharma including:

·     identifying mutations on patient CTCs, which may become targets for future drug development;

·     selecting patients whose cancers exhibit particular mutations for inclusion in clinical trials of new drug targets addressing those mutations;

·     monitoring patient CTCs during clinical trials as an indicator of whether the drug target is providing effective benefit to the patient;

·     once new drugs have been approved for clinical use, being used along side the drug as a companion diagnostic to select patients for whom the drug will be beneficial and ensuring that it is not deployed for patients for whom it will not be beneficial; and

·     for existing drugs on the market, which are effective but only for a sub-population of patients, selection of those patients for which it is effective so that prescription is only to those who will benefit.  This personalised cancer care will reduce overall healthcare costs, reduce overall side effects and increase the overall performance of the drug.

A core objective for ANGLE is the wide adoption of the Parsortix system in the pharma industry for the capture and harvest of patient CTCs for analysis.

ANGLE's Founder and Chief Executive, Andrew Newland, commented:

"We believe that ANGLE's Parsortix system has the potential for widespread deployment within the pharmaceutical industry in support of personalised cancer care.  We are delighted to welcome Dr Clive Stanway, a leading expert in cancer drug development, as a Scientific Adviser to ANGLE and believe he will make an important contribution to accelerating adoption of the Parsortix system by major pharma."

For further information:

ANGLE plc	01483 685830
Andrew Newland, Chief Executive Ian Griffiths, Finance Director
Cenkos Securities Stephen Keys, Christopher Golden (Nominated adviser) Andy Roberts, Christian Hobart (Sales)	020 7397 8900
Buchanan Mark Court, Fiona Henson, Sophie Cowles	020 7466 5000

 

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