Netscientific Regulatory News (NSCI)

NetScientific plc

Vortex BioSciences granted critical patent for its Liquid Biopsy technology

London, UK - 15 September 2015 - NetScientific plc ("NetScientific" or the "Group", AIM: NSCI), the transatlantic biomedical and healthcare technology group, announces that one of its key portfolio companies, Vortex BioSciences Inc., has been granted a critical patent on its core technology in the US.

Vortex BioSciences is a cancer diagnostic instrument company providing liquid biopsy solutions for isolating, detecting and harvesting circulating tumour cells ('CTC's) from cancer patients' blood sample for use in downstream clinical applications such as monitoring disease progression and drug treatment effectiveness.

The granted patent, licensed exclusively to Vortex from UCLA, was also recently issued in China and Australia and covers its core technology of inertial microfluidics and its application to the separation and collection of cells of interest including CTCs. This US patent covers the unique microfluidic chip design and performance of the Vortex assay, enabling flow of samples such as blood and collection of cells of interest via microfluidic channels and vortices. The patent also covers collection of CTCs from the chip for downstream analysis such as counting, cytology and DNA sequencing.

Dr Michael Boyce-Jacino, Head of US Operations at NetScientific: "This key patent provides strong protection of our novel and powerful new platform technology for cell separation. Alongside our three previously issued patents, this US patent strengthens our global market position as we prepare to beta launch our VTX-1 product in the US later this year."

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About NetScientific

NetScientific is a biomedical and healthcare technology group that funds and develops technologies that offer transformative benefits to people's lives and society through improved diagnosis, prognosis and treatment.

For more information, please visit the website at www.netscientific.net. 

About Vortex BioSciences Inc.

Vortex BioSciences is a cancer diagnostic instrument company developing the Vortex VTX-1 bench top instrument, which runs a simplified, high-speed blood test for a wide range of metastatic cancers. The instrument harvests live CTCs from patient blood samples for use in downstream clinical applications such as monitoring disease progression and drug treatment effectiveness. The Company will sell laboratory instruments along with single use cartridges for each blood sample. For more information, please visit the website at www.vortexbiosciences.com.

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