ANGLE PLC’s (LON:AGL, OTCQX:ANPCY) Parsortix technology was used by an Italian research team for a breast cancer study that successfully identified tumour cells in blood tests which would be missed with other systems.
Researchers used Parsortix to isolate circulating tumour cells (CTCs) in patients with recurrent disease and analysed them concurrently with circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA, fragments of tumor derived DNA ) in the blood.
The authors of the study showed that, in the vast majority of recurrent cancer cases, CTCs identified were non-epithelial and would not have been detected by any of the commercially available epithelial antibody-based approaches, including the market leader.
Additionally, ANGLE highlighted that harvesting CTC and the subsequent analysis allowed multiple druggable targets to be identified, which it said is particularly significant for triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) patients who typically have more limited treatment options.
"We designed this observational prospective study to explore ctDNA for earlier detection of relapse in TNBC patients with CTC analysis from blood drawn as a means to identify druggable molecular features in relapsed cases,” said Dr Serena Di Cosimo, who led the study.
The research was conducted in Milan, Italy, at the Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori which is regarded as a leading cancer research centre.
The company noted that breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer in women in the US - some 280,000 new cases are anticipated in 2021 – and TNBC accounts for between 10% and 15% of new cases.
TNBC is different from other types of invasive breast cancer. It grows and spreads faster, has a worse prognosis and has limited treatment options.
Researchers in Milan showed in their study that analysis of CTCs harvested by Parsortix can have significant potential for non-invasive, real-time monitoring of cancer patients. It would also give insight into druggable targets for next line therapy at disease recurrence.
Andrew Newland, ANGLE chief executive, said: “The use of the Parsortix system in uncovering potential new therapeutic targets through its ability to harvest mesenchymal as well as epithelial CTCs for analysis showcases further evidence of the advantages of using the Parsortix system over antibody-based CTC systems.
“ANGLE's ability to provide this actionable information could help patients who have limited treatment options and should prove highly attractive to drug developers looking for new approaches for hard-to-treat cancers, such as TNBC.”
He added: “Harnessing these unique capabilities in our clinical services laboratories is allowing ANGLE to accelerate the commercial deployment of the Parsortix system by offering services to pharmaceutical and biotech customers for use in cancer drug clinical trials, a market where we are already gaining traction."