Vortex BioSciences and Israeli provider of automated cell imaging and analysis solutions, BioView , will work on collecting intact circulating tumour cells (CTCs) from blood samples to become part of the standard of care, said Tuesday the transatlantic healthcare IP commercialisation group whose portfolio company is Vortex, NetScientific.
The collaboration will enable Vortex and Bioview to create integrated workflows for the collection of the CTCs, with a view to increasing the prominence of CTCs in the clinical space as a diagnostic and monitoring tool, NetScientific said, noting that the aim of the collaboration is to provide clinicians with deeper insights into cancer biology.
BioView, a publicly traded company on the Tel Aviv Stock exchange, currently has international strategic collaborations. Bioview develops, manufactures and supplies cell imaging equipment, and analysis software to medical institutes and universities with its CTC application, which incorporates field-proven algorithms, developed in collaboration with leading cancer research centers worldwide, NetScienfific noted.
Furthermore, the integrated VTX-1 and BioView workflow is currently being used in several clinical studies focused on CTC enumeration, ALK FISH rearrangements and PD-L1 expression on CTCs. PD-L1, in particular, has been a focus of the collaboration because of the potential clinical benefits. Overexpression of PD-L1 has been identified as a pathway that metastatic tumor cells use to evade immune detection, the IP specialist said.
Vortex BioSciences’s Chairman and the CEO of NetScientific, Francois Martelet, explained that the partnership with BioView will allow automated identification of biomarkers expressed by CTCs collected by Vortex’s platform. He said that this technology has potential applications in the fast-evolving field of immuno-oncology and the collaboration represents a critical step for Vortex as it moves towards the clinical market.