NEW YORK – Circulating tumor cell (CTC) assay developer Angle said Wednesday that it has signed a supplier agreement with AstraZeneca to develop and validate a method for the detection of micronuclei in CTCs using its existing DNA damage response (DDR) assay.
The company said that it will earn £150,000 (about $186,542) for an initial six-month development phase of the project.
Angle has already developed a CTC-based assay that measures expression of a key protein in the DDR pathway, pKAP1, and it said that further development with AstraZeneca will take place in Angle's Guildford, UK, lab.
The firm believes its DDR assay could facilitate development of targeted therapies and could also potentially be used to monitor treatment response to these drugs.
Angle CEO Andrew Newland said in a statement that the company is hoping to expand its pharma services arm moving forward.
"With the increasing investigation of DNA damage response/PARP inhibitors, alone or in combination with chemotherapy or immunotherapy, there is a need for minimally invasive, robust, and repeatable DDR assays," Angle CSO Karen Miller added in a statement.