Angle reaches provisional agreement with Abbott

Medical diagnostics group Angle inked a deal with US healthcare firm Abbott on Tuesday, with the latter agreeing to provide Angle with its proprietary PathVysion HER-2 DNA FISH probe kits for its ANG-002 Federal Drug Administration study.

Fluorescence in situ hybridisation analysis, or FISH, is a form of investigating the cancer cells used with solid tissue biopsy to help select treatment and is one of Angle's exploratory end-points for its study into metastatic breast cancer.

Angle hopes to demonstrate that circulating tumour cells (CTCs) can be harvested from the blood of metastatic breast cancer patients using its own Parsortix system, ANG-002, and that the harvested CTCs could then be subjected to FISH analysis to determine their HER-2 status.

Kathryn B Becker, franchise director oncology and companion diagnostics at Abbott, said: "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."

The firm's founder and chief executive, Andrew Newland, added, "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. 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."

As of 1040 GMT, shares had retreated 6.41% to 43.05p.