ANGLE plc (AIM: AGL OTCQX: ANPCY), the specialist medtech company with pioneering products for cancer diagnostics, is pleased to announce the appointment of Daniel Costin Danila, MD, as a Scientific Advisor to the Company with immediate effect.
Dr Danila is a leader in the development and adoption of CTCs as predictive biomarkers to help clinicians select appropriate treatments.
He is an assistant attending physician at Memorial Hospital Cancer Center in New York as well as an instructor with the Weill Cornell Medical College. Dr Danila’s primary research focuses on prostate cancer. Specifically, he is exploring a hypothesis that molecular profiling of circulating tumour cells (CTCs) can be used to assess biological determinants of the growth of prostate cancer tumours.
Most recently, Dr Danila served as the principal investigator (PI) for “Circulating Tumor Cells as Biomarkers for Patients with Metastatic Prostate Cancer: Developing Assays for Androgen Receptor Signaling Pathway”, which focused on analysing CTCs from patients with metastatic prostate cancer for molecular biomarkers predictive of tumor sensitivity to targeted treatments. Funding for the research was provided by the Department of Defense Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs, Prostate Cancer Research Program, Physician Research Training Award.
Dr Danila received his MD from Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Bucharest, Romania and was a research fellow, intern and resident at Massachusetts General Hospital prior to joining Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in 2005.
ANGLE Founder and Chief Executive, Andrew Newland, commented: “Dr Danila is a leader at Memorial Sloan Kettering, one of the world’s top cancer centres, in the adoption of CTCs in clinical practice particularly in relation to prostate cancer, the second most common cancer for men. Following our recent encouraging results in prostate cancer, we are delighted that Dr Danila will be working with us to bring this potential to patients.”
Dr Daniel Danila, assistant attending physician at Memorial Hospital Cancer Center in New York and instructor with the Weill Cornell Medical College added:
“I am delighted to be joining ANGLE as a Scientific Advisor. Developing predictive biomarkers of tumor sensitivity to better help clinicians in selecting the right treatment for patients at the time of treatment decision is a key unmet need. Molecular profiling of CTCs holds the promise of sampling the tumor tissue with the convenience of a simple blood test. Novel enrichment and capturing techniques to reliably isolate CTCs for molecular characterisation are particularly needed.”
For further information:
ANGLE plc 01483 685830
Andrew Newland, Chief Executive
Ian Griffiths, Finance Director
Cenkos Securities
Stephen Keys, Dr Christopher Golden (Nominated adviser)
Russell Kerr, Olly Baxendale (Sales)
020 7397 8900
FTI Consulting
Simon Conway, Mo Noonan
Kimberly Ha (US)
020 3727 1000
For Frequently Used Terms, please see the Company’s website on http://www.angleplc.com/the-parsortix-system/glossary/
Notes for editors
About ANGLE plc www.angleplc.com
ANGLE is a specialist medtech company commercialising a disruptive platform technology that can capture cells circulating in blood, such as cancer cells, even when they are as rare in number as one cell in one billion blood cells, and harvest the cells for analysis.
ANGLE’s cell separation technology is called the Parsortix system and it enables a liquid biopsy (simple blood test) to be used to provide the cells of interest. Parsortix is the subject of granted patents in the United States, China and Australia and three extensive families of patents are being progressed worldwide. The system is based on a microfluidic device that captures cells based on a combination of their size and compressibility. The Parsortix system is established with strong positive evaluations from leading cancer research centres and ANGLE is working with these cancer centres to demonstrate key applications. Parsortix has a CE Mark for Europe and FDA authorisation is in process for the United States.
The analysis of the cells that can be harvested from patient blood with ANGLE’s Parsortix system has the potential to help deliver personalised cancer care offering profound improvements in clinical and health economic outcomes in the treatment and diagnosis of various forms of cancer.
The global increase in cancer to a 1 in 3 lifetime incidence is set to drive a multi $billion clinical market. The Parsortix system is designed to be compatible with existing major medtech analytical platforms and to act as a companion diagnostic for major pharma in helping to identify patients that will benefit from a particular drug and then monitoring the drug’s effectiveness.
Now that the Parsortix system has been developed, ANGLE is focused on its commercialisation in the market.
ANGLE is currently commercialising the Parsortix system for research use sales and for its first clinical application, the triaging of patients with an abnormal pelvic mass to identify, ahead of corrective surgery, those at high risk of ovarian cancer.
ANGLE has established formal collaborations with nine world-class cancer centres and is working with these cancer centres to demonstrate key applications for its Parsortix system as a liquid biopsy. Details are available here http://www.angleplc.com/the-company/collaborators/
As well as cancer, the Parsortix technology has the potential for deployment with several other important cell types in the future.
ANGLE began trading on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange in March 2004 under the ticker symbol AGL. For further information please visit: www.angleplc.com.
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