Angle selected for European cancer ID programme

The evaluation phase, which runs until 2020, will assess the suitability of Angle's Parsortix system being adopted as a standard circulating tumour cell harvesting system to be used alongside different molecular analysis techniques in standard operating protocols.

This will be followed by a clinical phase to establish the use of liquid biopsies in treating lung and breast cancer, which is intended to provide clinical evidence to support the adoption of liquid biopsy in routine cancer care.

Cancer-ID, which has a budget of over €14m, is funded by the Innovative Medicines Initiative, which includes 38 partners from 13 countries, such as University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, University of Twente, Bayer AG and Menarini Silicon Biosystems, and aims to establish standard protocols for and clinical validation of blood-based biomarkers for liquid biopsies to become routine clinical practice.

Angle founder and chief executive Andrew Newland, said: "We are delighted to be part of this programme as it offers the Parsortix system the potential to be specified as a standard circulating tumour cell harvesting system for clinical use in patients with lung cancer and breast cancer in Europe, with the opportunity for collaboration with multiple downstream analysis companies."

Professor Klaus Pantel from the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf said: "Blood-based analysis of tumor derived cells and nucleic acids offer a novel concept of liquid biopsies to provide real-time information relevant to cancer diagnosis and therapy.

“The Cancer-ID project fills the substantial gap between basic research focused on novel methods for the detection and characterisation of circulating tumor cells and nucleic acids, and the development of robust validated assays required to bring the liquid biopsy concept into the clinic."

Shares in Angle were up 0.89% to 50.95p at 0842 GMT.