ANGLE PLC (LON:AGL, OTCQX:ANPCY) has made excellent progress over the last six months, according to chairman Garth Selvey.
The highlights included successful US and European ovarian cancer studies that underlined the potential of the company’s Parsortix liquid biopsy system.
READ: ANGLE's Parsortix device could revolutionise breast cancer treatment
Assessing 400 patients, the device, which isolates circulating tumour cells, outperformed the standard process in allowing doctors to tell the difference between benign and malignant pelvic masses.
Progress with clearance
ANGLE has also made significant progress towards Class II clearance from the US Food & Drug Administration for the use of Parsortix in metastatic breast cancer.
Analytical studies are underway, while patient enrolment will start shortly to test the device in the clinic with the world-leading MD Anderson Center overseeing the process.
Institutional Review Board approvals have also been received from two of the six centres, paving the way for recruitment to the trial.
“This is a significant milestone,” said Mark Brewer, analyst at specialist small-cap broker finnCap.
In the period, the group acquired Axela for £3.6mln, which expands ANGLE’s liquid biopsy capabilities to enable “unique 'sample to answer' solution with multiplex gene and protein expression”.
Commercial traction
Commercially, the business is also starting to gain significant traction.
It has inked a co-marketing partnership with QIAGEN, the molecular testing company and concluded a collaboration with Philips in breast and rectal cancer.
"ANGLE has continued to make excellent progress in executing its strategy for commercialisation of the Parsortix system, and its adoption as a gold standard in liquid biopsy, during the first half of the year,” said chairman Selvey.
“We have successfully completed two large scale ovarian cancer clinical studies, progressed our FDA studies, broadened our liquid biopsy capabilities to include a downstream analysis platform with the acquisition of assets of Axela, and secured corporate partnerships with two leading, global healthcare companies.”
Supporting ANGLE’s cause, a growing body of published evidence from internationally-recognised cancer centres has essentially validated the Parsortix system as a leading liquid biopsy platform for ovarian, breast and prostate cancers.
There are now 145 devices out there and 39,000 blood separations have been completed. Extensive research usage is expected to “drive increasing revenues as new protocols are developed and adopted”, the company said.
READ: ANGLE's blood biopsy could aid the treatment of patients with late-stage prostate cancer
The financials reflect a business making its tentative first steps into the commercial world. It booked revenues of £200,000 for the six months ended October 31 and a loss of £3.4mln.
The company’s broker, finnCap, expects ANGLE to post full-year turnover of £1.1mln, which leaves it with a lot to do in the second half.
“Interim revenue results reflect the lumpy nature often seen during the early rollout of a research-use instrument platform and it will require a strong second-half performance to meet our full-year forecasts, which we believe is possible,” said analyst Brewer in a note to clients.
Cash position comfortable
He expects the company’s year-end cash position to be £7.2mln.
The shares succumbed to a bout of profit-taking as they fell 6% to 49.05p. finnCap reckons the stock is worth 108p.
“[Our] target price is not sensitive to early research-use revenues,” said Brewer.
“[The] key focus is given to the expected positive outcome of Parsortix as the first FDA cleared system for harvesting CTCs [circulating tumour cells].”