Angle Regulatory News (AGL)

ANGLE plc ("the Company")

ANGLE ANNOUNCES CO-MARKETING PARTNERSHIP WITH QIAGEN

Combines ANGLE's CTC harvesting technology with QIAGEN's downstream analysis and bioinformatics capabilities for circulating tumor cell research

ANGLE plc (AIM:AGL OTCQX:ANPCY), a world-leading liquid biopsy company, is delighted to announce it has established a co-marketing agreement with QIAGEN, a world-leading provider of molecular testing solutions with more than 500,000 customers in Molecular Diagnostics (human healthcare), Applied Testing (forensics, veterinary testing and food safety), Pharma (pharma and biotech companies) and Academia (life sciences research).

The partnership will seek to leverage the advantages of combining ANGLE's world leading Parsortix system for harvesting circulating tumor cells (CTCs) with QIAGEN's liquid biopsy solution portfolio which consists of dedicated NGS (next generation sequencing), PCR (polymerase chain reaction), single cell analysis products and bioinformatics capabilities. The initial focus will be on prostate and breast cancer research applications.

The agreement entails both companies offering the other's products to its customer base and follows an intensive evaluation of Parsortix by QIAGEN identifying the advantages of the system.

Michael Kazinski, QIAGEN's Senior Director Molecular Preanalytic Technologies commented:

"ANGLE's Parsortix system is a unique, epitope-independent CTC solution offering easy, automated processing of whole blood to harvest all types of CTCs, including the clinically relevant mesenchymal CTCs, for analysis. It complements very well with our AdnaTest CTC portfolio, now allowing for both phenotypic and molecular characterization of CTCs. The modular combination abilities of this system with QIAGEN's liquid biopsy-based Sample to Insight offering, including AdnaTest, our targeted RNAseq and single cell solutions, along with our bioinformatics offering, will allow scientists and clinical researchers to significantly advance their research."

ANGLE Founder and Chief Executive, Andrew Newland, commented:

"We are delighted that Parsortix has been selected by QIAGEN as their label-free CTC harvesting technology. We believe the ability to offer customers a combination of Parsortix with validated and reliable downstream analysis technologies from a world leader such as QIAGEN facilitates key aspects of the sales cycle and we look forward to working closely together. Partnering is a core part of ANGLE's strategy to secure widespread adoption of Parsortix right across the market leveraging the customer base and distribution channels of established players."

QIAGEN is a world-leading provider of liquid biopsy solutions for molecular testing from Sample to Insight. In 2015, QIAGEN introduced the first regulated companion diagnostic assay based on molecular biomarkers from circulating tumor DNA. QIAGEN has created a wide range of strong standards for the processing of liquid biopsy samples, including circulating cell free DNA, messenger RNA, circulating tumor cells, exosomes and others. Many of the solutions offer fully integrated and highly automated workflows spanning from collection through to the purified nucleic acid. The QIAGEN solutions are used in numerous diagnostic and research workflows and represent gold standards in terms of performance. Such solutions allow liquid biopsies to be easier and less expensive to perform than tissue biopsies and they allow for significantly improved sensitivity, specificity and robustness of liquid biopsies which can be reliably repeated at regular intervals for monitoring of disease progression.

For further information ANGLE:

For Frequently Used Terms, please see the Company's website on http://www.angleplc.com/the-parsortix-system/glossary/

This announcement contains inside information.

Notes for editors

About ANGLE plc www.angleplc.com

ANGLE is a world-leading liquid biopsy 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 ParsortixTM 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 Europe, the United States, Canada, India, China, Japan and Australia and three extensive families of patents are being progressed worldwide. The system is based on a microfluidic device that captures live cells based on a combination of their size and compressibility. Parsortix has a CE Mark for Europe and FDA authorisation is in process for the United States.

ANGLE has established formal collaborations with world-class cancer centres. These Key Opinion Leaders are working to identify applications with medical utility (clear benefit to patients), and to secure clinical data that demonstrates that utility in patient studies. Details are available here http://www.angleplc.com/the-company/collaborators/ 

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 dollar 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.

As well as cancer, the Parsortix technology has the potential for deployment with several other important cell types in the future.

ANGLE stock trades on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol AGL and in New York on the OTC-QX under the ticker symbol ANPCY. For further information please visit: www.angleplc.com

About QIAGEN www.qiagen.com 

QIAGEN N.V., a Netherlands-based holding company, is the leading global provider of Sample to Insight solutions that enable customers to gain valuable molecular insights from samples containing the building blocks of life. Our sample technologies isolate and process DNA, RNA and proteins from blood, tissue and other materials. Assay technologies make these biomolecules visible and ready for analysis. Bioinformatics software and knowledge bases interpret data to report relevant, actionable insights. Automation solutions tie these together in seamless and cost-effective workflows. QIAGEN provides solutions to more than 500,000 customers around the world in Molecular Diagnostics (human healthcare), Applied Testing (forensics, veterinary testing and food safety), Pharma (pharma and biotech companies) and Academia (life sciences research). As of June 30, 2017, QIAGEN employed approximately 4,600 people in over 35 locations worldwide. Further information can be found at http://www.qiagen.com