European patent granted for megakaryocyte analysis

RNS Number : 7424O

Angle PLC

04 October 2019

 

For immediate release

4 October 2019

ANGLE plc ("the Company")

EUROPEAN PATENT GRANTED TO QUEEN MARY UNIVERSITY LONDON FOR MEGAKARYOCYTE ANALYSIS TO ASSESS AGGRESSIVENESS OF PROSTATE CANCER

ANGLE holds worldwide exclusive option over all megakaryocyte intellectual property

Presence of megakaryocytes in prostate cancer linked to patient survival

ANGLE plc (AIM:AGL OTCQX:ANPCY), a world-leading liquid biopsy company, is pleased to announce that the Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) European patent covering the measurement of the number of megakaryocytes in a patient blood sample as an assessment of the prognosis for prostate cancer has been granted.   

ANGLE has an option agreement, exercisable up until 14 June 2021, with QMUL for an exclusive worldwide licence over the use of its megakaryocyte intellectual property.  The grant of the European patent protects the Company's ability to offer a megakaryocyte-based test in Europe.  Similar patents are being pursued in the United States and certain other major territories.

QMUL published research in Clinical Cancer Research in 2017 using ANGLE's Parsortix^® system showing that the number of megakaryocyte cells in the blood of prostate cancer patients correlates closely with increased patient survival.  This was the first time the presence of these cells in patient blood has been shown to be connected to cancer prognosis and to date no competing system has published success in this area. 

Investigation of megakaryocytes in patient blood opens up the potential for a whole new area for cancer prognosis and, at present, ANGLE's patented Parsortix system is the only automated system that has demonstrated the capability of harvesting megakaryocytes.  Alternative liquid biopsy approaches such as ctDNA (fragments of dead cells) cannot assess the presence of megakaryocytes.

ANGLE now has the potential for intellectual property protection over the upstream megakaryocyte cell capture technology (its existing Parsortix IP) and the downstream megakaryocyte analysis technology (via its option over the patent grant announced today).  The protection of key intellectual property is an essential part of ANGLE's differentiated and highly leveraged product-based commercialisation strategy.

The Parsortix system has previously been shown to be capable of harvesting mesenchymal circulating tumor cells (CTCs), which are linked to a poor patient outcome. Circulating megakaryocytes are linked to a more favourable patient outcome.  Combining these two factors may provide new insights into assessing the prognosis of prostate cancer patients, allowing stratified treatment.

ANGLE Founder and Chief Executive, Andrew Newland, commented:

"We welcome the acceptance of this European patent and are excited by the potential for this entirely new way of assessing cancer through a simple blood test that has been enabled by ANGLE's Parsortix system.  We will now be investigating the possibility of adding megakaryocyte tests to our existing CTC tests as part of our sample-to-answer imaging solution under development."

Dr Michele Hill-Perkins, Head of Technology Transfer Biopharma at QMUL Queen Mary Innovation Ltd, commented:

 "We are pleased to see the grant of the European patent for the analysis of megakaryocytes in patient blood as a prognostic biomarker with the potential to open up new avenues in the fight against cancer.  We look forward to working with ANGLE to bring this analysis to patients as soon as possible."

Dr Yong-Jie Lu, Professor in Molecular Oncology at Barts Cancer Institute, and the Principal Investigator for the megakaryocytes discovery commented:

 "We believe megakaryocytes in patient blood may play a key role in the body's immune response to all solid cancer types, not just prostate cancer. We are currently investigating this hypothesis in several other cancer types to maximise the potential of megakaryocyte analysis."

For further information ANGLE:

ANGLE plc	[phone]
Andrew Newland, Chief Executive Ian Griffiths, Finance Director
finnCap Ltd (NOMAD and Joint Broker) Corporate Finance - Carl Holmes, Simon Hicks, Max Bullen-Smith ECM - Alice Lane, Sunila de Silva	[phone]
WG Partners (Joint Broker) Nigel Barnes, Nigel Birks, Andrew Craig, Chris Lee	[phone]
FTI Consulting Simon Conway, Ciara Martin Matthew Ventimiglia (US)	[phone] [phone]

For Frequently Used Terms, please see the Company's website on http://www.angleplc.com/the-parsortix-system/glossary/

Notes for editors

About ANGLE plc www.angleplc.com 

ANGLE is a world leading liquid biopsy company with sample-to-answer solutions. ANGLE's proven patent protected platforms include an epitope-independent circulating tumor cell (CTC) harvesting technology and a downstream analysis system for cost effective, highly multiplexed analysis of nucleic acids and proteins.

ANGLE's cell separation technology is called the Parsortix^® system, and it enables a liquid biopsy (a simple blood test) to be used to provide the cells of interest to the user in a format suitable for multiple downstream subsequent analyses.  CTCs enable the complete picture of a cancer to be seen as they allow DNA, RNA and protein analysis and the live cells harvested can be cultured.  The Parsortix technology is the subject of 24 granted patents in Europe, the United States, China, Australia, Canada, India, Japan and Mexico with three extensive families of patents are being progressed worldwide.  The system is based on a microfluidic device that captures cells based on a combination of their size and compressibility.  The Parsortix system has a CE Mark in Europe for the indicated use and FDA clearance is in process for the United States with a 400 subject study in metastatic breast cancer. ANGLE is seeking to be the first ever FDA cleared CTC harvesting system and only the third ever FDA cleared liquid biopsy test.  ANGLE has already undertaken two separate 200 subject clinical studies under a program designed to develop an ovarian cancer pelvic mass triage test, with the results showing best in class accuracy (ROC-AUC) of 95.1%.  The pelvic mass triage assay has undergone further refinement and optimisation, and is currently in the process of a 200 patient clinical verification study.

ANGLE's technology for the multiplex evaluation of proteins and nucleic acids of all types is called the HyCEAD^TM Ziplex^® platform and is based on a patented flow through array technology.  It provides for low cost, highly multiplexed, rapid and sensitive capture of targets from a wide variety of sample types. A proprietary chemistry approach (the HyCEAD method) allows for the capture and amplification of over 100 biomarkers simultaneously in a single reaction. The HyCEAD Ziplex system is ideal for measuring gene expression and other markers directly from Parsortix harvests and was used in the ovarian cancer pelvic mass triage test to achieve best in class accuracy (ROC-AUC) of 95.1%.

ANGLE's proprietary technologies can be combined to provide automated, sample-to-answer results in both centralised laboratory and point-of-use cartridge formats.

ANGLE has established formal collaborations with world-class cancer centres and major corporates such as Abbott, Philips and QIAGEN, and works closely with leading CTC translational research customers.  These Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) are working to identify applications with medical utility (clear benefit to patients), and to secure clinical data that demonstrates that utility in patient studies.  The body of evidence as to the benefits of the Parsortix system is growing rapidly from our own clinical studies in metastatic breast cancer and ovarian cancer and also from KOLs with 25 peer-reviewed publications and numerous publicly available posters, available on our website.

 

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