ANGLE PLC’s (LON:AGL) Parsortix liquid biopsy system has successfully harvested disseminated tumour cells from bone marrow in a study of breast cancer patients in Germany.
Disseminated tumour cells (DTCs) are thought to be a reason a patient can relapse even after years of remission, as these cells can ‘hibernate’ in the bone marrow and be re-activated by metastasis.
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Current treatment can cause up to an 80% loss of the target cells, meaning low detection rates.
Researchers at the Center for Women's Health Tuebingen, Germany, however, found that the Parsortix-based protocol recovered about 80% of input target cells.
Furthermore, the researchers believe Parsortix may be usable in other, non-blood, body fluids for the detection of tumour cells through liquid biopsies.
Dr André Koch at the Tuebingen center said in a statement that Parsortix showed ‘huge promise’ in improving the efficiency of isolating DTCs from bone marrow.
“At our Women's Hospital, taking bone marrow is routine during surgery on breast cancer patients, so improvements to processing and then analysis of the bone marrow are particularly valuable."
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Andrew Newland, ANGLE’s chief executive, added DTCs presence in bone marrow has been shown in multiple studies to be predictive of clinical relapse.
“The research from the Center for Women's Health in Tuebingen demonstrates the utility of Parsortix in harvesting disseminated cancer cells from bone marrow.”
House broker finncap added that the harvesting of cancer cells from bone marrow (not just blood) extends the potential application of ANGLE's Parsortix liquid biopsy system significantly and should, in due course, lead to new revenue streams in a range of clinical applications.
The broker has a 108p target price. Shares were up 9% on Monday to 43.1p.
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