Selected for European Cancer ID Programme

RNS Number : 6697W

Angle PLC

13 February 2017

 

For immediate release

13 February 2017

ANGLE plc ("the Company") 

PARSORTIX SELECTED FOR EUROPEAN CANCER-ID PROGRAMME

ANGLE plc (AIM: AGL OTCQX: ANPCY), the specialist medtech company, is pleased to announce that it has been formally selected for CANCER-ID, the European consortium to validate blood-based biomarkers for cancer.

CANCER-ID is a European consortium funded by the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI), with a total budget exceeding €14 million, bringing together 38 partners from 13 countries, and aimed at the establishment of standard protocols for and clinical validation of blood-based biomarkers to enable liquid biopsies to become routine clinical practice.

University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, University of Twente, Bayer AG and Menarini Silicon Biosystems coordinate the consortium, bringing together experts from academic and clinical research to the life sciences industry to provide a unique setting to establish the clinical utility of liquid biopsies.

ANGLE's participation in the consortium involves a contribution to the programme in the form of a number of Parsortix instruments and associated consumables for evaluation.  The evaluation will assess the suitability of the Parsortix system being adopted as a standard circulating tumour cell (CTC) harvesting system to be used alongside a variety of different molecular analysis techniques in standard operating protocols.  Running until 2020, an initial evaluation phase will be followed by a clinical phase to establish the use of liquid biopsies in treating lung and breast cancer.  This is intended to provide clinical evidence to support the adoption of liquid biopsy in routine cancer care.

The academic leads of the CANCER-ID consortium are Prof. Klaus Pantel, Head of the Department of Tumor Biology at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Germany, and Prof. Leon Terstappen, Head of the Department of Medical Cell Biophysics at the University of Twente, The Netherlands.  Both are leaders in the field of liquid biopsy and have an impressive track record in both basic research and applied science including device development.  The lead companies of the CANCER-ID consortium are Bayer AG and Menarini Silicon Biosystems.

ANGLE Founder and Chief Executive, Andrew Newland, said:

"The CANCER-ID project is focusing on developing and setting standard protocols for the use of CTC liquid biopsies and the clinical validation of blood-based biomarkers.  We are delighted to be part of this programme as it offers the Parsortix system the potential to be specified as a standard CTC harvesting system for clinical use in patients with lung cancer and breast cancer in Europe, with the opportunity for collaboration with multiple downstream analysis companies."

Professor Klaus Pantel, the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, commented:

"Blood-based analysis of tumor derived cells and nucleic acids offer a novel concept of liquid biopsies to provide real-time information relevant to cancer diagnosis and therapy.  The CANCER-ID project fills the substantial gap between basic research focused on novel methods for the detection and characterisation of circulating tumor cells and nucleic acids, and the development of robust validated assays required to bring the liquid biopsy concept into the clinic."

Dr Thomas Schlange, Biomarker Research, Bayer AG Drug Discovery, added:

"CANCER-ID is an excellent example of a project in which a public-private partnership enables a collaborative research approach to come up with novel concepts in modern cancer therapy.  The consortium brings together a large experienced team of biomarker experts across Europe that extends far beyond the scope of traditional 'one-on-one' industry-academia collaborations."

ANGLE plc	01483 685830
Andrew Newland, Chief Executive Ian Griffiths, Finance Director
Cenkos Securities Stephen Keys (Nominated adviser), Steve Cox Russell Kerr (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/

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, Japan 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

About the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI)           www.imi.europa.eu 

The Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) is working to improve health by speeding up the development of, and patient access to, innovative medicines, particularly in areas where there is an unmet medical or social need. It does this by facilitating collaboration between the key players involved in healthcare research, including universities, the pharmaceutical and other industries, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), patient organizations and medicines regulators.

IMI is a partnership between the European Union and the European pharmaceutical industry, represented by the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA). Through the IMI 2 programme, IMI has a budget of €3.3 billion for the period 2014-2024. Half of this comes from the EU's research and innovation programme, Horizon 2020. The other half comes from large companies, mostly from the pharmaceutical sector; these do not receive any EU funding, but contribute to the projects 'in kind', for example by donating their researchers' time or providing access to research facilities or resources.

This project has received funding from the Innovative Medicines Initiative 2 Joint Undertaking under grant agreement No 115749. This Joint Undertaking receives support from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and EFPIA.

 

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