CelLBxHealth PLC (AIM:CLBX, NSX:ANPCY) has unveiled early results from a study that links its cancer cell detection technology with Roche’s widely used diagnostic equipment, a step that could make blood-based cancer testing easier to integrate into hospital laboratories.
The Guildford-based company, which focuses on analysing circulating tumour cells, live cancer cells that break away from tumours and travel in the bloodstream, presented its findings at the World ADC Conference in San Diego, the leading global event for antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs).
The proof-of-concept study showed that CellBxHealth’s Parsortix platform is compatible with Roche’s BenchMark ULTRA automated staining system.
This system, a mainstay of hospital pathology labs, can process up to 95 patient samples a minute roughly 50 million a year, and is used worldwide to analyse tissue samples for disease markers.
In the study, CellBxHealth’s samples were tested for three major cancer targets: HER2 in breast cancer, TROP2 in lung cancer and PSMA in prostate cancer.
The results showed that Roche’s automated system successfully identified these proteins using blood-derived cancer cells, matching the results achieved by traditional manual staining methods.
Peter Collins, chief executive, said: “We are pleased to present initial results on our proof-of-concept study undertaken using Roche Tissue Diagnostics' workflow.
"It is well known that targeted treatments that utilise biomarkers improve patient outcomes. As such, this study highlights the importance of targeted antigen expression on CTCs and their relevance for potentially guiding ADC therapy selection in real time.”
The findings suggest that analysing tumour cells circulating in the blood could one day provide a safer, faster, and less invasive alternative to traditional biopsies. Unlike tissue samples, blood tests can be repeated over time, giving doctors a clearer picture of how a patient’s cancer evolves during treatment.
ADCs are a fast-growing area of cancer medicine that use antibodies to deliver chemotherapy drugs directly to tumour cells, sparing healthy tissue.
By helping identify which patients are most likely to respond to these drugs, CellBxHealth’s approach could add an important new tool to the development of targeted therapies.