Research published in Clinical Chemistry

RNS Number : 2625L

Angle PLC

30 September 2016

 

For immediate release

30 September 2016

ANGLE plc

("ANGLE" or "the Company")

RESEARCH DEMONSTRATES POTENTIAL USE OF PARSORTIX IN ASSESSING CHEMOTHERAPY RESISTANCE

Fourth peer-reviewed publication - highlights key Parsortix advantages

University Medical Centre Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE) details research results in the prestigious journal, Clinical Chemistry

ANGLE plc (AIM: AGL OTCQX: ANPCY), the specialist medtech company, today announces that University Medical Centre Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE) has published new research detailing the use of ANGLE's Parsortix^TM system in the prestigious peer-reviewed journal Clinical Chemistry. The paper is entitled "Accession of Tumor Heterogeneity by Multiplex Transcriptome Profiling of Single Circulating Tumor Cells" ¹.

The UKE cancer research team lead by Professor Klaus Pantel is a world-leading authority on the emerging field of liquid biopsy and, in 2015 alone, published 17 scientific papers in high ranking journals on different aspects of the application of liquid biopsy in cancer care. 

UKE compared the use of Parsortix with a leading antibody-based system, in parallel, using the same samples from both prostate and breast cancer patients. The Parsortix system allowed better downstream profiling of chemokines, as a result of substantially higher expression levels on the Parsortix harvested circulating tumour cells (CTCs). 

Chemokines are proteins involved in the signalling between immune cells and cancer cells that are associated with the formation of metastasis and chemotherapy resistance. Therefore an understanding of the chemokine profile may play a key role in selection of drugs that will be effective for an individual patient.

The success of the Parsortix system in this application underpins its broader potential as a highly-effective cell capture and harvest system based on a combination of size and deformability.  Unlike other commercially available systems, Parsortix is epitope-independent (not based on antibodies) so captures viable and undamaged CTCs, including the mesenchymal CTCs that are missed by other systems. Alternative ctDNA techniques cannot be used as the required analysis is of RNA.

The RNA analysis of cancer cells offers the opportunity to stratify patients into phenotypical subgroups according to their expression profiles, providing an important framework for therapeutic decisions, including determining which drugs will be effective for which patient, based on a simple blood test.  Therefore, UKE's work demonstrates further utility of the Parsortix system and specifically the potential to identify patient responders in pharmaceutical cancer drug trials and its potential for use as a companion diagnostic in clinical practice².

Prof. Klaus Pantel, Chairman, Department of Tumour Biology at UKE's Centre of Experimental Medicine, commented:

"We are excited about the new workflows utilising Parsortix to study multi marker profiles of single CTCs by low cost qPCR³ approaches.  The high expression levels of chemokines achieved with Parsortix offers the potential for its use in therapy selection for patients and we will be progressing further studies to determine specific applications."

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

"This fourth peer-reviewed publication in a key scientific journal adds to the growing body of published evidence of Parsortix's superior performance as a liquid biopsy.  The incorporation of Parsortix in protocols for therapy selection has the potential to meet a key need in personalised medicine. By facilitating the determination of which drugs will benefit individual patients and which will have little clinical benefit yet cause significant side effects, such protocols will also help reduce the burden on expensive healthcare resources." 

1.   The publication is available for download at http://www.angleplc.com/the-parsortix-system/download-files/

2.   The work undertaken developed and utilised low cost staining, micro-manipulation and qPCR techniques to enable multiplex RNA profiling.  The techniques developed provide wide gene expression information without the need for high cost next generation sequencing and consequently may be amenable to widespread adoption in the future as qPCR systems are already widely available in hospital laboratories.

3.   Quantitative PCR - a rapid diagnostic detection technology used to identify very small quantities of a specific RNA/DNA sequence in a sample.

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
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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