CelLBxHealth PLC (AIM:CLBX, FRA:DWV), the AIM-listed circulating tumour cell (CTC) diagnostics company, has secured a collaboration with AdventHealth, one of the largest faith-based health systems in the United States, to deploy its Parsortix platform in two clinical cancer studies.
The trials, titled ACTION and SUNRISE, will use CelLBxHealth's technology to isolate and analyse CTCs from blood samples taken from patients undergoing treatment for colon, gastrointestinal and lung cancers.
CTCs are cancer cells that break away from a tumour and circulate in the bloodstream, and their analysis can offer real-time insight into how a tumour is responding to treatment without the need for invasive biopsies.
The ACTION study is a multi-site, National Institutes of Health-funded trial currently enrolling 219 colon cancer patients to evaluate how different doses of aerobic exercise influence chemotherapy tolerability.
SUNRISE, expected to commence in July 2026, is a digitally enabled trial in 120 patients with gastrointestinal and lung cancers assessing whether remotely delivered exercise programmes can improve chemotherapy tolerance and quality of life.
Across both studies, CTC analysis will serve as a correlative endpoint, helping researchers understand how tumours evolve in response to treatment and behavioural interventions.
A central aim of the collaboration is to bring advanced cancer monitoring closer to patients' homes through simple blood draws rather than hospital-based biopsies, an approach the companies say could help address health inequalities in access to specialist cancer care.
AdventHealth operates an extensive national network of hospitals and outpatient facilities across the US, giving CelLBxHealth a platform to validate and expand adoption of Parsortix in routine clinical practice.
Peter Collins, chief executive of CelLBxHealth, said the collaboration "demonstrates the growing importance of accessible, non-invasive technologies in modern oncology".
Justin Brown, principal investigator and director of the Exercise and Cancer Biology Research Programme at AdventHealth, said the studies aim to "improve treatment tolerance, better understand how tumours respond to therapy and provide care that is more accessible for patients across diverse communities".
CelLBxHealth is headquartered in Guildford, with US operations based in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania.