Oxford Biodyn Regulatory News (OBD)

28 September2017

Oxford BioDynamics Plc

("OBD"or the"Company" and, together with its subsidiaries, the "Group")

EpiSwitch™ blood-based test successful in diagnosing and staging breast cancer in Caucasian patient cohort

· EpiSwitch™ showed high specificity in correctly identifying all four stages of breast cancer in 136 patients

· Following completion of this initial milestone, OBD is to further analyse patients with a family history of breast cancer and high risk of genetic predisposition

Oxford BioDynamics Plc (AIM: OBD), a biotechnology company focused on the discovery and development of epigenetic biomarkers based on regulatory genome architecture, for use within the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry, is pleased to announce that, using its proprietary technology platform EpiSwitch™, it has been successful in diagnosing breast cancer in a Caucasian cohort of patients provided by the Maria Skłodowska-Curie Memorial Cancer Centre and Institute of Oncology (MCMCC), Gliwice Branch, Poland.

As part of the collaboration with MCMCC, OBD has successfully stratified patients representing all four stages of breast cancer against healthy controls using its EpiSwitch™ blood-based test. The EpiSwitch™ markers used showed high specificity and robustness across the cohort of patients and potentially provide an important research insight into epigenetic controls of the disease.

With completion of this first milestone, OBD plans to further expand its analysis across the cohort of 136 patients, focusing on the patients with a family history of breast cancer and high risk of genetic predisposition. OBD aims to develop validated stratifications for the prevalent subtypes of breast cancer, prognosis and predisposition risks, specific for the Caucasian ethnic group.

MCMCC is part of European Society of Medical Oncology and is the primary government oncological research institution in Poland.

Christian Hoyer Millar, Chief Executive Officer of Oxford BioDynamics, said:

"We are very pleased with the latest results delivered by our EpiSwitch™ technology in which we have been successful in diagnosing and staging breast cancer in a Caucasian patient cohort. We are delighted to be working with MCMCC and extremely grateful for the excellent quality of the clinical cohort provided for our study. We are looking forward to the next stage of our collaboration, as we believe our technology can deliver stratification insights that will assist oncologists and their patients for better, more informed clinical decisions in the difficult cases that involve a family history or high genetic predisposition for breast cancer.

We are excited with the latest developments in this project and the benefits in patient care we would be able to offer, and look forward to providing further updates in due course."

-ENDS-

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Notes for Editors

About Oxford BioDynamics Plc

Oxford BioDynamics Plc (AIM: OBD) ("Oxford BioDynamics") is a biotechnology company focused on the discovery and development of epigenetic biomarkers for use within the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry. 

The Company's award-winning, proprietary technology platform, EpiSwitch™, aims to accelerate the drug discovery and development process, improve the success rate of therapeutic product development and take advantage of the increasing importance of personalised medicine. 

In particular, EpiSwitch™ can reduce time to market, failure rates and the costs at every stage of drug discovery. Additionally, the technology provides significant insights into disease mechanisms for drug discovery and product re‐positioning programmes, and enables the personalisation of therapeutics for patients in the context of challenging pricing environments where improved clinical outcomes are critical.

Oxford BioDynamics is headquartered in the UK, and listed on the London Stock Exchange's AIM under the ticker "OBD". For more information please visit www.oxfordbiodynamics.com.

About The Maria Skłodowska-Curie Memorial Cancer Centre

The Maria Skłodowska-Curie Memorial Cancer Centre in Gliwice is part of the biggest cancer centre in Poland with 1500 employees alone in Gliwice with 479 beds, treating approximately 35,000 patients per year. It treats patients diagnosed with malignant and benign tumours, providing all available therapies for all types of tumours. It uses modern equipment and methods for surgery, radiotherapy, nuclear medicine chemotherapy, bone marrow transplantations, clinical cancer genetics, molecular biology and medical physics. It enables the complex treatment of each patient according to his/her unique genetic and molecular features (the precision medicine approach) which achieves the best survival rates for the treated patients. Additionally, the therapies developed at the Institute have been used to perform two successful face transplants.

The equipment and therapeutic methods performed at the Institute allows the treatment of patients suffering from non-tumour diseases e.g. endocrinology diseases or neurodegeneration health problems. The Institute also has the oldest in Europe cancer registry.

The scientific staff of the Institute comprises of more than 120 researchers, including 15 full professors and 107PhD or MD/PhD researchers.

The scientists of Maria Skłodowska-Curie Memorial Cancer Centre in Gliwice are specialists in oncology, molecular and cell biology, radiobiology, nuclear medicine and medical physics.

The research staff are well recognised in the Polish and international research field, being involved in many aspects of basic, translational and clinical research in oncology since the early 1950s. For more information please visit www.io.gliwice.pl.