Healthcare giant Abbott Laboratories’ (NYSE:ABT) is to collaborate with liquid biopsy medtech ANGLE PLC (LON:AGL, OTCQX:ANPCY) on a metastatic breast cancer study.
Abbott will provide its proprietary PathVysion HER-2 DNA FISH Probe kits for ANGLE's ANG-002 US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) study for FISH (fluorescence in situ hybridization) analysis of circulating tumour cells (CTCs) in the form of a research grant.
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FISH analysis, which is a form of investigation of the cancer cells used with solid tissue biopsy to help select treatment, is one of the exploratory end-points for ANGLE's FDA study in metastatic breast cancer, ANGLE said.
The objective of this end-point is to demonstrate that CTCs can be harvested from the blood of metastatic breast cancer patients using ANGLE’s Parsortix system and that the harvested CTCs can then be subjected to FISH analysis to determine their HER-2 status.
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“The PathVysion HER-2 DNA FISH Probe kit is reliable and accurate in tissue biopsy samples and the Parsortix system may unlock the potential for PathVysion use in a simple blood test. We look forward to the outcomes of the study and the potential opportunity to further collaborate with ANGLE in combining FISH and liquid biopsy in other areas," said Kathryn Becker, franchise director of oncology and companion diagnostics at Abbott.
ANGLE’s founder and chief executive Andrew Newland said the hook-up with Abbott was another important collaboration for the AIM-listed company with a leader in downstream analysis.
“Abbott's PathVysion is the market leader for FISH evaluation of HER-2 in breast cancer. Following our FDA studies, we hope to be able to work with Abbott to extend PathVysion use into routine blood test analysis as an important downstream application of the Parsortix system in breast cancer,” Newland said.
“Use of ANGLE's Parsortix system would for the first time enable established tissue biopsy techniques to be used for breast cancer on cancer cells obtained from a simple blood test protecting patients from invasive procedures and improving their care whilst at the same time reducing healthcare costs."