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(Alliance News) - Liquid biopsy firm Angle PLC on Friday said Queen Mary University of London has been granted a European patent for measuring megakaryotypes in the blood to assess prostate cancer prognosis.
Angle has an option agreement with the university for an exclusive licence over the use of the megakaryocyte intellectual property and so this patent gives protection to Angle's "ability to offer a megakaryocyte-based test in Europe".
The option agreement can be exercised all the way up until June 2021.
Back in 2017, Queen Mary University published research which used Angle's Parsortix system. The research showed "that the number of megakaryocyte cells in the blood of prostate cancer patients" was closely correlated "with increased patient survival". Megakaryocytes are a kind of large bone marrow cell.
At present, Parsortix is the only automated system shown to be capable of harvesting megakaryocytes, with other liquid biopsy products unable to do so.
Angle Founder & Chief Executive Andrew Newland said: "We welcome the acceptance of this European patent and are excited by the potential for this entirely new way of assessing cancer through a simple blood test that has been enabled by Angle's Parsortix system. We will now be investigating the possibility of adding megakaryocyte tests to our existing [circulating tumour cell] tests as part of our sample-to-answer imaging solution under development."
Shares in Angle were down 0.7% at 77.00 pence in London on Friday morning.
By Anna Farley; annafarley@alliancenews.com
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