BUSINESS UPDATE

RNS Number : 0919T

Angle PLC

10 December 2012

 



For immediate release

10 December 2012

ANGLE plc

("ANGLE" or "the Company")

BUSINESS UPDATE   

ANGLE plc (AIM: AGL), the specialist medtech company, announces an update on Parsortix, its non-invasive cancer diagnostic business, and Novocellus, its IVF embryo viability investment.

Parsortix

Development of the Parsortix non-invasive cancer diagnostic product and its swift launch in the market is ANGLE's over-riding priority.

ANGLE's patent-protected Parsortix technology enables the simple and effective capture and counting of very rare circulating tumour cells (CTCs) from cancer patient blood ("blood separations").  This opens the potential for ANGLE to address a research market estimated to be worth over £250 million per annum and a clinical market in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer estimated to be worth over £6 billion per annum globally.   

Strong progress has been made since the last update given with the Preliminary Results on 26 July 2012 in developing a product to address these markets.

Firstly, a new automated machine for running blood separations (the "MK1 machine") has been designed and built.  Two such machines are currently working with blood samples in ANGLE's Parsortix laboratory in Philadelphia.  

The MK1 machine is approximately the size of a home inkjet printer.  It is a plug and play machine, with minimal input needed from the user, designed to ensure successful reproducible blood separations with the capture and identification of CTCs from the blood sample.  Achieving this level of automation was a technically demanding challenge and we are very pleased with the substantial progress we have made.

Secondly, a new separation cassette (the "GEN3 cassette") has been designed and manufactured as the consumable to work with the MK1 machine.  The GEN3 cassette incorporates several innovations as enhancements to the already successful GEN2 cassette. 

These include the re-design of the shape of the cassette into the standard dimensions of a laboratory microscope slide, which conforms to an industry standard that is used extensively in research and clinical operations.

The progress made with the MK1 machine and GEN3 cassette now means that blood separations can be undertaken by lab technicians without the need for any specialist training or experience.   

The MK1 machine and GEN3 cassette are working well together and initial indications are of high percentage capture rates of cultured cancer cells in spiked samples.  Further testing and development is required, but these initial results are highly encouraging. 

Work is currently taking place to (i) develop the staining / cell identification protocols to mark the captured cells definitively as cancer cells in the GEN3 cassette and (ii) optimise the protocols for blood separation to minimise user intervention, time to results, and reagent use.  We plan to release machines to our research partners, the Paterson Institute for Cancer Research and the University of Surrey Oncology Department, within the next few weeks.  Among other things, these partnerships will enable testing of the system with actual cancer patient blood. 

Following confirmation from our research partners that the system is working successfully in their hands, we expect to be able to release a product for research purposes for sale early in the New Year.

Novocellus

Novocellus is ANGLE's investment in EmbryoSure^®, which is a technology for assessing the viability of embryos for transfer in IVF (in vitro fertilisation).

On 27 June 2012, ANGLE advised the market that The Cooper Companies, Inc. (Cooper) had acquired ORIGIO, ANGLE's partner for the development of EmbryoSure^®.  Following the acquisition, Cooper merged ORIGIO with its other ART (Assisted Reproductive Technology) subsidiary, SAGE IVF. As part of a rationalisation programme, ORIGIO has now decided to cease a number of development programmes including the EmbryoSure^® study.

As a result of ORIGIO's decision, all the intellectual property and ownership rights in EmbryoSure^® revert to Novocellus and ANGLE's ongoing financial and management resources committed to Novocellus (other than costs to maintain the company's intellectual property) are currently being re-directed to Parsortix. 

ANGLE remains confident of EmbryoSure^®'s clinical utility in increasing successful pregnancy rates through the selection of the most developmentally competent embryos for IVF transfer and that there is a major unmet medical need in this area.

There remain a range of options for commercialising EmbryoSure^®, which we will consider in due course. 

ANGLE's Founder and Chief Executive, Andrew Newland, commented:

"We are pleased with strong continued progress with our Parsortix non-invasive cancer diagnostic business.  We are maintaining a clear focus on getting a Parsortix product in the market as soon as possible.  Whilst ORIGIO's decision is disappointing, we retain the rights to EmbryoSure^®'s intellectual property for future exploitation and this allows us to pursue a greater focus on Parsortix."

For further information:

ANGLE plc	01483 685830
Andrew Newland, Chief Executive Ian Griffiths, Finance Director
Cenkos Securities Stephen Keys, Adrian Hargrave (Nominated adviser) Andy Roberts, Christian Hobart (Sales)	020 7397 8900
Buchanan Mark Court, Fiona Henson, Sophie Cowles	020 7466 5000

 

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