PointMan™ collaboration with ANGLE plc

EKF Diagnostics Holdings plc (AIM: EKF), the AIM-listed point-of-care, central laboratory and molecular diagnostics business, announces that it has agreed a collaboration with specialist medtech company ANGLE plc (AIM: AGL), to investigate the combination of ANGLE’s Parsortix circulating tumour cell (CTC) harvesting platform with EKF’s PointMan™ DNA enrichment technology as a liquid biopsy.

The collaboration will initially focus on colorectal cancer and then expand to other types. CTCs will be harvested from cancer patients’ blood using ANGLE’s Parsortix system and analysed using PointMan™ DNA enrichment technology (EKF Molecular Diagnostics) to identify genetic variation in the cancer.

ANGLE believes that combining ANGLE’s Parsortix system with EKF’s PointMan™ technology may be advantageous for two reasons. Firstly, the PointMan™ system preferentially amplifies variant sequences of interest whilst suppressing amplification of the wild type, i.e., normal DNA. As a result, it can potentially identify all mutations in gene sequences associated with the clinical utility of targeted cancer therapies. In contrast, competing genetic analysis systems generally amplify only those areas that may be predicted to be mutant and therefore may miss unexpected mutations. Secondly, the system is highly sensitive and can work with very low levels of target material, potentially as low as one CTC. The high purity of the Parsortix harvest (low white blood cell contamination) and its epitope independence (does not use antibody capture) may enable the combined system to be widely deployed across different cancer types and stages of disease.

Cancer patient blood samples will first be processed under ANGLE’s existing research collaboration with the University of Surrey and the Royal Surrey County Hospital. The University of Surrey Oncology Department has already processed 20 colorectal cancer patient samples with the Parsortix system and stored the harvested cells for analysis. This bank of samples is ready for analysis and should enable the collaboration to make rapid progress towards initial proof-of-principle.

If the collaboration is successful, ANGLE and EKF will explore ways to offer their respective systems as a combined solution for the pharmaceutical drug trial and research use market. Then, the clinical market for patient data will be developed.

ANGLE’s patented Parsortix system can harvest rare CTCs in cancer patient blood, even when there is less than one CTC in one billion healthy cells. The resulting liquid biopsy (simple blood test) enables the investigation of mutations in the patient’s cancer for personalised cancer care. The Parsortix system is “open-source” and has been designed to work with all existing analytical procedures in the same way the existing solid biopsy provides cancer cells for various analytical methods.

ANGLE’s commercialisation strategy is to establish partnerships with multiple leading diagnostic companies to offer a complete solution to the oncologist. ANGLE believes this is the optimal approach for unlocking the multi-billion-dollar worldwide market available to the Company and its potential strategic partners.

Partners will be selected for their specialist technical capabilities, which enable new high-medical utility applications, and/or their market strength and existing installed base of diagnostic systems, which enable accelerated market adoption of the Parsortix system.

Julian Baines, CEO of EKF Diagnostics Holdings plc, commented: “Our PointMan™ DNA enrichment technology has demonstrable performance in the detection of ultra-low-level mutations. The high purity of the CTCs harvested by ANGLE’s Parsortix system and the absence of immunomagnetic beads give us confidence that it will be effective, with the Parsortix-harvested CTCs providing rapid molecular information to the oncologist.”

ANGLE’s Founder and Chief Executive, Andrew Newland, commented: “We are delighted to announce this collaboration with EKF. Combining ANGLE’s Parsortix system with EKF’s PointMan™ system can provide a complete solution for the oncologist. We look forward to an early proof-of-principle.”