UKE publishes evaluation of Parsortix

RNS Number : 8247M

Angle PLC

25 January 2016

 

For immediate release

25 January 2016

ANGLE plc

("ANGLE" or "the Company")

PEER-REVIEWED PUBLICATION HIGHLIGHTS SIGNIFICANT ADVANTAGES OF PARSORTIX^TM IN HARVESTING CTCS OVER OTHER APPROACHES

Allows Harvesting of Cancer Cells From Blood With Exceptional Purity And Viability Enabling Broad Range Of Molecular Analysis

Paper by University Medical Centre Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE) published in International Journal of Cancer

ANGLE plc (AIM: AGL OTCQX: ANPCY), the specialist medtech company, today announces that University Medical Centre Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE) has published an evaluation of ANGLE's Parsortix^TM system in the prestigious peer-reviewed International Journal of Cancer. The paper is entitled "A novel microfluidic platform for size and deformability based separation and the subsequent molecular characterization of viable circulating tumor cells" ¹.

The UKE cancer research centre 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's evaluation demonstrated significant advantages of the Parsortix system in harvesting circulating tumour cells (CTCs) compared to antibody-based and filtration CTC enrichment systems.  The publication determined that the Parsortix system enables the harvesting of CTCs at a high purity and provides viable tumour cells that are easily accessible and ready for a broad range of molecular and functional analyses.

99 per cent of the harvested CTCs from both spiked and patient samples were viable after processing and still functional for downstream molecular analysis as demonstrated by mRNA characterisation and array based comparative genomic hybridisation.

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

"Systems that can comprehensively capture the broad range of CTCs - not only epithelial cells, but others including mesenchymal cells - will play an important role in cancer diagnoses and subsequent treatment.  Our findings emphasise the importance of developing new label-free assays that allow the molecular characterisation of CTCs for therapeutic targets and resistance mechanisms at the DNA, RNA and protein level.  This information is vital as liquid biopsies will help clinicians to adapt therapies to the individual needs of cancer patients."

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

"This is our third peer-reviewed publication in a key scientific journal and adds to the growing body of published evidence of Parsortix's superior performance as a liquid biopsy.  The demonstration of viability of the CTCs is notable and in stark contrast to competing approaches.  Cell viability and easy harvesting of cells from blood are key capabilities that differentiate ANGLE's Parsortix system for the developing liquid biopsy market in cancer diagnosis and treatment." 

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

For further information:

ANGLE plc	01483 685830
Andrew Newland, Chief Executive Ian Griffiths, Finance Director
Cenkos Securities Stephen Keys, Dr Christopher Golden (Nominated adviser) Russell Kerr, Olly Baxendale (Sales)	020 7397 8900
FTI Consulting Simon Conway, Mo Noonan, Stephanie Cuthbert Kimberley 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 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 cells based on a combination of their size and compressibility. The Parsortix system is established with strong positive evaluations from leading cancer research centres and is working with these cancer centres to demonstrate key applications. Parsortix has a CE Mark for Europe and FDA authorisation is in process for the United States. 

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 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.

Now that the Parsortix system has been developed, ANGLE is focused on its commercialisation in the market.  The product is on the market and being sold for research use and work is progressing towards approvals for clinical use to permit clinical sales of the system.

ANGLE is strongly focused on establishing the use of the Parsortix system in clinical practice.  To achieve this, 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.  ANGLE believes this is the optimal approach for unlocking the multi-billion dollar worldwide market available to the Company and its potential strategic partners.  Details are available here http://www.angleplc.com/the-company/collaborators/

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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