Initiation of 200 patient US ovarian cancer study

RNS Number : 3222F

Angle PLC

27 July 2016

 

For immediate release

27 July 2016

ANGLE plc ("the Company")

INITIATION OF 200 PATIENT UNITED STATES OVARIAN CANCER STUDY

Leading United States cancer centre recruiting patients; complements recently started European study also in ovarian cancer

ANGLE plc (AIM:AGL OTCQX:ANPCY), the specialist medtech company, is pleased to announce that it has initiated an ovarian cancer study in the United States, in addition to its recently opened European ovarian cancer study.  The US study is being led by Dr Richard Moore at the University of Rochester Medical Center Wilmot Cancer Institute (New York State). 

Preparation and approvals for the US ovarian cancer study (known as the ANG-003 EMBER study) have been ongoing over recent months.  The study has now been formally opened and the first few patients have already been recruited.

The EMBER study is designed to enrol approximately 200 women with a diagnosed pelvic mass who are scheduled to undergo biopsy, laparotomy or laparoscopic surgery at the University of Rochester Medical Center.  Enrolment will continue until a total of 50 evaluable women with a histopathologically confirmed malignancy have been identified.  Blood from consenting patients will be processed using the Parsortix^TM system to harvest any circulating tumour cells (CTCs) that may be present for evaluation.  The Parsortix harvests from the women enrolled into the study will be evaluated for the presence of markers associated with malignancy in ovarian cancer cells.  These results will then be compared with the histopathological diagnoses post-surgery to assess their association with whether the pelvic mass is benign or malignant.

Additionally, a portion of the Parsortix harvest from each patient will be stored so that it can subsequently be used for verification of the molecular markers identified in ANGLE's European ovarian cancer study (ANG-001) as being optimal for the detection of ovarian cancer CTCs harvested by the Parsortix system.

Ovarian cancer surgery is highly complex and maximal tumour removal has a very strong impact on survival.  Women with the diagnosis or a strong indication of ovarian cancer can be referred for surgery to specialists in gynaecologic oncology.  The consequence is a significantly better outcome compared to the situation when surgery is performed by a general gynaecologist and cancer is diagnosed at this point. There would therefore be great clinical benefit if it were known in advance of surgery that an abnormal pelvic mass is malignant.  Conversely, women with benign pelvic mass may be treated more easily and cost effectively by a general surgeon in their local hospital.  ANGLE estimates that the addressable global market for the pre-surgical assessment of ovarian cancer risk, available for Parsortix sales, could be in excess of £300 million per annum.  

The University of Rochester Medical Center is an integrated academic health center with experts and significant research interests in the area of women's health.  Dr Moore, the Director of the Gynecologic Oncology Division, leads Wilmot Cancer Institute's Gynecology Service Line and serves as Director of the Targeted Therapeutics Laboratory for Gynecologic Cancers.

Dr Moore, an internationally recognised expert on the use of biomarkers to detect ovarian cancer, is ideally qualified to assist ANGLE in its efforts to develop a diagnostic assay for the detection of ovarian cancer.  He led the team that developed the Risk of Ovarian Malignancy Algorithm (ROMA), one of two tests currently cleared by the FDA for use as an aid in assessing whether a premenopausal or postmenopausal woman who presents with an ovarian adnexal mass is at high or low likelihood of finding malignancy on surgery.  ROMA is based on the HE4 and CA125 biomarkers, which may be over-expressed in the blood of ovarian cancer patients.

Dr Richard Moore, Director of the Gynecologic Oncology Division, University of Rochester Medical Center Wilmot Cancer Institute, commented:

"There remains a large unmet medical need to accurately discriminate benign from malignant pelvic masses before surgery.  I am delighted to be working with the Parsortix system.  As it works with live cancer cells rather than general markers of disease, it offers the potential for high specificity avoiding the problem of false positives that affects all existing techniques."

ANGLE Founder and Chief Executive, Andrew Newland, commented:

"The initiation of this US study reflects ANGLE's determination to secure substantial patient data from multiple locations as soon as possible to demonstrate the effectiveness of the ovarian clinical application and support regulatory approval.  We are delighted that Dr Moore and his team at University of Rochester Medical Center are progressing this study so rapidly."

For further information:

ANGLE plc	01483 685830
Andrew Newland, Chief Executive Ian Griffiths, Finance Director
Cenkos Securities Stephen Keys (Nominated adviser) Russell Kerr, Oliver Baxendale (Sales)	020 7397 8900
WG Partners David Wilson Claes Spång	020 3705 9330
FTI Consulting Simon Conway, Mo Noonan, Stephanie Cuthbert Kimberly Ha (US)	020 3727 1000 001 212 850 5612

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

This announcement contains inside information.

Notes for editors

About ANGLE plc     www.angleplc.com 

ANGLE is a specialist medtech company commercialising a disruptive platform technology that can capture cells circulating in blood, such as cancer cells, even when they are as rare in number as one cell in one billion blood cells, and harvest the cells for analysis.

ANGLE's cell separation technology is called the Parsortix^TM system and it enables a liquid biopsy (simple blood test) to be used to provide the cells of interest. Parsortix is the subject of granted patents in Europe, the United States, Canada, China and Australia and three extensive families of patents are being progressed worldwide. The system is based on a microfluidic device that captures live cells based on a combination of their size and compressibility. Parsortix has a CE Mark for Europe and FDA authorisation is in process for the United States. 

ANGLE has established formal collaborations with world-class cancer centres.  These Key Opinion Leaders are working to identify applications with medical utility (clear benefit to patients), and to secure clinical data that demonstrates that utility in patient studies.  Details are available here http://www.angleplc.com/the-company/collaborators/ 

The analysis of the cells that can be harvested from patient blood with ANGLE's Parsortix system has the potential to help deliver personalised cancer care offering profound improvements in clinical and health economic outcomes in the treatment and diagnosis of various forms of cancer.

The global increase in cancer to a 1 in 3 lifetime incidence is set to drive a multi-billion dollar clinical market. The Parsortix system is designed to be compatible with existing major medtech analytical platforms and to act as a companion diagnostic for major pharma in helping to identify patients that will benefit from a particular drug and then monitoring the drug's effectiveness.

As well as cancer, the Parsortix technology has the potential for deployment with several other important cell types in the future.

ANGLE stock trades on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol AGL and in New York on the OTC-QX under the ticker symbol ANPCY. For further information please visit: www.angleplc.com

 

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