Shares in ANGLE PLC (LON:AGL) pushed higher on Thursday after the medical diagnostics group said it will collaborate with healthcare and electronics giant Philips.
The Dutch company has secured a research grant from the European Union worth €6.3mln, of which €0.45mln (£0.4mln) will flow to ANGLE.
As part of the four-year collaboration, Philips will use ANGLE’s Parsortix cell separation technology to harvest circulating tumour cells for analysis.
READ: ANGLE establishes co-marketing agreement with leading molecular testing solutions provider QIAGEN
The tie-up comes just a couple of months after ANGLE unveiled a co-marketing agreement with molecular testing solutions firm QIAGEN and is part of the company’s strategy to establish partnerships with a wide range of large companies for the commercialisation of Parsortix.
"We are delighted to be working with Philips and the other commercial partners on the development of new liquid biopsy solutions,” said ANGLE chief executive and founder Andrew Newland.
“We look forward to joint commercialisation of these solutions and to working closely with Philips going forward. This is a further demonstration of ANGLE's strategy to partner with large corporates to deliver widespread adoption of ANGLE's Parsortix CTC harvesting system.”
READ: ANGLE catches tumour cells 'hibernating' in bone marrow in new study
Each patient and tumour is unique, and often a treatment that's effective for one patient will be ineffective for another.
With that in mind, Philips is looking to develop and validate tools and techniques that could help clinicians better decide on what is the best course of treatment for each individual cancer patient.
In a note to clients, analysts at house broker finnCap said: “The inclusion of ANGLE in a €6.3m Horizon 2020 EU-funded collaboration, led by Philips to develop liquid biopsy solutions, is a significant third-party endorsement of Parsortix, ANGLE’s cell separation system.
They made no changes to forecasts, and retained their 108p price target on the stock.
In late afternoon trading, Angle shares were 7.5%, or 3p higher at 43p.
-- Adds analyst comment, updates share price --