For immediate release
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17 November 2015
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ANGLE plc
("ANGLE" or "the
Company")
CANCER RESEARCH UK MANCHESTER
INSTITUTE REPORTS LUNG CANCER CTC ENRICHMENT USING PARSORTIX
ANGLE's Parsortix system "… offers a
unique combination of features making it suitable for routine
clinical analysis of patient blood samples"
ANGLE plc (AIM: AGL OTCQX: ANPCY),
the specialist medtech company, is delighted to announce that
Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute (CRUK MI) has published highly encouraging results from its
work in lung cancer patients using ANGLE's Parsortix system in the
Royal Society of Chemistry's publication, Analyst.
Analyst publishes peer-reviewed
analytical and bioanalytical research that reports premier
fundamental discoveries and inventions, and the applications of
those discoveries. The publication is available at
http://www.angleplc.com/the-parsortix-system/download-files/
Lung cancer is the most common
cancer in the world. More than 1.8 million cases of lung
cancer were recorded in 2012, accounting for around 13 per cent of
all new cancer cases (Source: World Cancer Research Fund
International). Effective treatment for lung cancer is
dependent on the cancer status which is determined through
biopsy. However, where traditional solid biopsies are
invasive and can harm the patient, liquid biopsies offer a
non-surgical, patient-friendly alternative.
Ged Brady, Deputy and Genomics
Leader within the Clinical & Experimental Pharmacology group at
Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute, commented:
"The Parsortix system has a unique
combination of features making it suitable for routine clinical
analysis of patient blood samples. We have now incorporated
the Parsortix workflow into multiple clinical trials and have been
accumulating many hundreds of stored enriched samples that will be
of immense value in our future CTC studies."
ANGLE's Founder and Chief Executive,
Andrew Newland, added:
"This is our second peer-reviewed
publication in a scientific journal and adds to the growing body of
published evidence of Parsortix's performance as a liquid
biopsy. The success in pilot studies in harvesting CTCs from
100% of small-cell lung cancer patients comes after similar
performance with 100% of prostate, breast and ovarian cancer
types. We believe Parsortix is changing the paradigm for CTC
capture and harvest for liquid biopsy and will change CTC molecular
analysis from being a theoretical but impractical goal to being
simple and effective in hospital laboratories all over the world.
The prospect of deployment of our repeatable,
non-invasive liquid biopsy in the treatment of lung cancer patients
is exciting and has the potential to make a major impact in
improving future cancer care."
CRUK MI undertook a clinical
head-to-head comparison of Parsortix with CellSearch, the only CTC
(circulating tumour cell) technology currently approved by the FDA
(1) and thus the current "gold standard" in CTC
detection. The comparison was undertaken with small cell lung
cancer (SCLC), a particularly aggressive form of lung cancer, as it
is known to be a cancer where CellSearch is considered to perform
well as a result of large numbers of EpCAM +ve CTCs. In this
pilot study:
·
Paired blood samples were taken from 12 patients
with SCLC for enrichment and enumerated by both CellSearch and
Parsortix
·
Parsortix captured and harvested for analysis 20
or more CTCs in all 12 samples (100%)
·
CellSearch identified CTCs in 10 out of 12 samples
but, of these, three samples contained fewer than five
CTCs
·
At the five cell cut-off, CellSearch only managed
to isolate CTCs for 7/12 patients (58%) compared to Parsortix's
12/12 patients (100%)
A further important differentiation
of the Parsortix system is that CRUK MI adopted a workflow that
first removed plasma from the blood sample, before running the cell
component of the sample on Parsortix. In all 11 samples where
it was undertaken, significant levels of cell-free DNA (cfDNA)
could be purified. CRUK MI thus demonstrated that using
Parsortix a single blood sample can be used for both cfDNA and CTC
analysis. There are many research groups focused on cfDNA
analysis. CRUK MI's work in this area clearly demonstrates
Parsortix's capability to work in tandem with these approaches to
provide additional clinical information, for example RNA and
protein expression.
ANGLE considers the findings
reported in the Analyst publication, which, in addition to the
clinical work on lung cancer, reports on extensive work that CRUK
MI have undertaken on the system since 2012, to be of great
importance in demonstrating the potential value of the Parsortix in
future cancer care. Key points extracted from the
publication's conclusion section include:
"In summary, the approach we have
described offers a unique combination of features making it
suitable for routine clinical analysis of patient blood
samples.
Firstly, the epitope independent CTC
enrichment approach we have devised is compatible with whole blood
stabilisation reagents suitable for at least four days at room
temperature.
Secondly, CTC enrichment takes place
in a simple plug and play device that remains sealed throughout the
enrichment step and the enriched cells are eluted directly into a
collection tube for further analysis.
Thirdly, the approach delivers both
plasma for cfDNA analysis and cells for CTC enrichment, enabling
direct comparisons of molecular readouts from both cfDNA and
CTC.
Fourthly, enriched CTC samples can
be banked for later analysis providing the much needed flexibility
often required to select relevant subsets of samples as well as
analytical approaches appropriate to specific clinical trials and
biological questions.
Finally, our initial clinical
results with SCLC patient blood samples clearly demonstrate that
the CTC enrichment process we have developed identifies subsets of
CTCs not readily detected by epitope dependent technologies thereby
facilitating more extensive CTC analysis which may help determine
the underlying patient cancer status providing the potential for
improving patient outcomes."
(1) The CellSearch system is the only FDA approved circulating
tumour cell system. It is approved for CTC enumeration only,
for a limited number of cancers and not for CTC harvesting for
analysis. The CellSearch system captures cells based on their
expression of the cell surface marker EpCAM.
For further information:
ANGLE plc
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01483 685830
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Andrew Newland, Chief
Executive
Ian Griffiths, Finance
Director
|
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Cenkos Securities
Stephen Keys, Dr Christopher Golden
(Nominated adviser)
Russell Kerr, Olly Baxendale
(Sales)
|
020 7397 8900
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FTI Consulting
Simon Conway, Mo Noonan, Stephanie
Cuthbert
Kimberley Ha (US)
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020 3727 1000
001 212 850 5612
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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 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.
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 began trading on the AIM
market of the London Stock Exchange in March 2004 under the ticker
symbol AGL. For further information please visit:
www.angleplc.com.