TIDMAGL
RNS Number : 4111V
Angle PLC
18 April 2016
For immediate release 18 April 2016
ANGLE plc ("the Company")
USC PATIENT DATA DEMONSTRATES POTENTIAL OF PARSORTIX FOR
METASTATIC BREAST CANCER LIQUID BIOPSY CLINICAL APPLICATION
First head to head comparison of the results of the invasive
metastatic biopsy with the results of a Parsortix liquid biopsy
Success shows potential for a simple blood test to direct
treatment for metastatic breast cancer
ANGLE plc (AIM:AGL OTCQX:ANPCY), the specialist medtech company,
is delighted to announce that the results of the University of
Southern California (USC) Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center's
ongoing work with ANGLE's Parsortix system have demonstrated the
potential for the use of Parsortix as a liquid biopsy for
metastatic breast cancer.
USC head to head patient data will be presented today at AACR
2016 (the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting
2016), which demonstrates a statistically significant correlation
in metastatic breast cancer between analysis of CTCs (circulating
tumor cells) harvested from a simple blood test using Parsortix
with similar analysis of tissue obtained from invasive biopsy of a
secondary cancer site. The Directors believe that the data
demonstrates the potential for the Parsortix liquid biopsy (simple
blood test) to replace the invasive biopsy.
Metastasis is responsible for the vast majority of breast cancer
related deaths. Initial treatment recommendations for breast cancer
are based on primary tumor biology from the initial solid biopsy at
patient presentation. However, the recently updated ASCO (American
Society of Clinical Oncology) guidelines call for biopsy of a
metastatic site to guide the decision making for treatment as it is
known that cancers change their status as disease progresses.
Access to the secondary cancer site to obtain this tissue biopsy is
challenging and requires the patient to undergo an invasive
procedure, which causes trauma and delays treatment until they have
recovered from the procedure. Furthermore the surgical intervention
takes time to arrange, is expensive and diverts resources from care
for the patient.
A liquid biopsy to obtain cancer cells for analysis from a
simple blood test has major advantages, including:
-- avoiding the patient suffering invasive procedures;
-- reducing the time to treatment decision;
-- providing information on all cancer sites at the
same time rather than just a single site;
-- enabling serial assessment of tumor biology over
time (repeat tissue biopsies are not generally
acceptable to patients); and
-- reducing costs.
In the USC study, the tissue from the invasive biopsy and the
CTCs from the Parsortix liquid biopsy harvest were both subjected
to Illumina's whole-transcriptome analysis using total RNA
sequencing (RNA-Seq). RNA-Seq can accurately measure gene and
transcript abundance, and identify known and novel features of the
transcriptome. RNA-Seq analysis has been completed on three sample
types covering metastatic tissue biopsy, Parsortix harvested CTCs
and, as a control, peripheral blood for each of eight patients.
This strategy enables measurement of thousands of genes at once in
order to generate a comprehensive picture of cellular function.
For every one of these patients, CTCs were successfully
harvested and RNA-Seq analysis successfully completed. This
analysis demonstrated a statistically significant correlation
between the expression signature of 192 genes in the Parsortix
harvested CTCs with similar analysis of tissue obtained from an
invasive biopsy of a secondary cancer site.
The metastatic biopsy material was sourced from a wide range of
metastatic sites including skin, pleural effusion (fluid around the
lung), pericardial effusion (fluid around the heart), breast,
cerebrospinal fluid (fluid found in the brain and spine) and bone
tissue. For all of these different metastatic sites, the Parsortix
CTCs provided similar gene expression compared to the metastatic
biopsy, allowing for the potential examination of known and novel
genes related to breast cancer.
These results suggest that by using Parsortix the same
clinically relevant information may be obtained from a patient
blood test as from an invasive metastatic biopsy regardless of its
location in the patient.
Furthermore a comparison of overall gene expression using
Parsortix harvested CTCs and the metastatic biopsy was undertaken
for different druggable pathways. 66 potentially clinically
actionable genes (i.e. gene targets against which a drug is already
available either FDA approved or in clinical trials) were
investigated and again there was no statistically significant
difference in gene expression between CTCs and invasive tissue
biopsy, covering 9 unique pathways. This suggests that the
Parsortix system has the potential to be a useful tool for
identifying drug targets in metastatic breast cancer and might be
utilised to assess the effectiveness of drugs under development in
clinical trials.
Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women and the second
most common overall. More than 1.7 million cases of breast cancer
were recorded in 2012, accounting for around 12 per cent of all new
cancer cases and 25 per cent in women. There are 6.3 million women
living with breast cancer (Source: World Cancer Research Fund
International). It is estimated that 20% to 30% of all breast
cancer cases will become metastatic (Source: Metastatic Breast
Cancer Network).
Replacement of the metastatic biopsy for breast cancer with a
Parsortix blood test would be non-invasive, cheaper and faster, and
could be repeated more frequently, thereby providing "real-time"
information for therapy selection reflecting disease
progression.
ANGLE now intends to work with USC and other leading cancer
centres to develop and implement clinical studies to validate the
use of the Parsortix system as a clinical application for the
routine biopsy of metastatic breast cancer patients. The
multi-centre clinical studies need to be specified but would be
expected to take at least 18 months to complete.
Julie E. Lang, MD, FACS, Director, USC Breast Cancer Program,
Associate Professor of Surgery, Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center,
University of Southern California, commented:
"As a breast cancer surgeon, I am very enthusiastic about the
potential of liquid biopsy to gain information to guide the
treatment of breast cancer patients based on the specific tumor
biology for each patient. Our pilot data shows that potentially the
same information can be obtained from a simple blood test using
Parsortix as from an invasive tissue biopsy and indeed may be
advantageous over invasive tissue biopsies in regards to the
diverse sites of metastatic disease, thus providing a compelling
rationale for use in clinical practice after further
validation."
ANGLE Founder and Chief Executive, Andrew Newland,
commented:
"These are more highly encouraging results for the use of the
Parsortix system this time for an RNA-based clinical application in
breast cancer to replace solid metastatic biopsy. This opens the
potential of another highly differentiated liquid biopsy
application for Parsortix in a key area of medical need, which
cannot be addressed by ctDNA, where there is the potential to
improve patient care and at the same time reduce healthcare
costs."
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 020 3727 1000
Kimberley Ha (US) 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 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.
(MORE TO FOLLOW) Dow Jones Newswires
April 18, 2016 02:00 ET (06:00 GMT)
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
This information is provided by RNS
The company news service from the London Stock Exchange
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