ANGLE PLC has announced groundbreaking clinical results from the DNA molecular analysis of cancer patient blood samples, providing a unique insight into the progression of each patient's cancer and potential treatment options. The company's Parsortix system has successfully combined the analysis of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) from the same blood sample, using next-generation sequencing (NGS) systems. This achievement is expected to drive product and pharma services sales for ANGLE.
The results from forty-seven patient samples in breast, lung, prostate, and ovarian cancers revealed that actionable DNA variants (cancer mutations) were identified in CTCs but not in the ctDNA from the same blood draw in a significant percentage of cases. This included variants targeted by widely used FDA-approved drugs for cancer care. ANGLE believes that this molecular profiling of CTC-DNA alongside ctDNA has the potential to revolutionize cancer treatment by enabling oncologists to track the clonal evolution of the patient's cancer, inform treatment decisions, monitor response to treatment, highlight drug resistance mechanisms, and signal disease progression.
ANGLE plans to use these clinical results to offer sample-to-answer DNA molecular solutions to pharma services customers and work with key opinion leaders and clinicians to expedite the clinical adoption of this combined molecular profiling approach. Dr. Karen Miller, ANGLE's Chief Scientific Officer, expressed excitement about the potential additional information provided by finding high levels of additional variants in the CTCs that are not present in ctDNA. ANGLE's Chief Executive Officer, Andrew Newland, emphasized the significance of this breakthrough, stating that it is a critical step to demonstrate the potential clinical value of NGS molecular analysis on a repeat basis of living cancer cells harvested from patient blood samples.
The technical background information provided by ANGLE highlights that the Parsortix system, combined with NGS DNA analysis, offers a completely new insight into cancer clonal evolution not currently available to researchers or oncologists. The process involves the extraction of plasma for ctDNA analysis ahead of processing the blood cellular component on the Parsortix system to harvest CTCs for analysis. Importantly, the plasma extraction has been demonstrated to have no impact on the CTC analysis, ensuring the additional benefit of analyzing CTCs alongside ctDNA utilizing the same NGS molecular analysis techniques already developed for ctDNA.
In conclusion, ANGLE's breakthrough in DNA molecular analysis for cancer patients using the Parsortix system has the potential to significantly impact cancer treatment and patient outcomes, representing a major step forward in the company's commitment to delivering transformational benefits to cancer patients through a simple blood test.