Angle Share News (AGL)

Technology firm Angle has announced that Parsortix, its 85% owned portfolio company which specialises in medical diagnostics, has achieved a major milestone by validating that its cell separation device can capture cancer cells added to blood.Parsortix's patented cell separation device can be used, on a reproducible basis, to isolate and capture very small numbers of cancer cells from whole blood, Angle reports. The device appears to efficiently capture all of the cancer cells, avoiding the risk of failing to detect cancer cells present in a blood sample.It allows the identification of cancer cells within the device, without requiring a complicated cell extraction process and does not require the use of expensive and sometimes unreliable antibody affinity capture technology to isolate the cancer cells.Angle said: "The company has already established discussions with several of the world's leading cancer research institutes and there is strong interest in such a product, which would not require regulatory approval for use for research purposes. The target is to establish sales of the product for research purposes as early as the second half of 2012."There is also the potential for a corporate partnership with one or more of the largest global medical diagnostic companies and initial discussions have identified encouraging interest in a commercial collaboration. This will be explored further over the coming months."The group added: "There are major clinical markets for a simple CTC [circulating tumour cells] counting product estimated to exceed $4 bn per annum in the United States market alone. The target is to seek FDA [Food and Drug Administration] approval and European CE Mark by mid 2013 enabling sales of product for clinical use."The CE mark is a mandatory conformity mark for products marketed in the European Union.The share price rose 18.75% to 33.25p by 09:01. NR