Abnova and Clearbridge BioMedics Accelerate Circulating Tumor Cell System into the Research and In Vitro Diagnostic Markets

09-19-2011: Abnova Corporation and Clearbridge BioMedics announced a collaboration to jointly develop a platform that provides a next generation, non-invasive “liquid biopsy” for cancer screening, staging, treatment, and monitoring. Through this collaboration, Abnova will leverage upon Clearbridge BioMedics’ core ClearCell™ CTChip®, which is an advanced microfiltration system for the isolation, enumeration, and retrieval of viable circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from blood. Abnova will then incorporate its proprietary antibody reagents (both research-grade antibody reagents and cGMP clinical-grade antibodies), to enable the accurate diagnosis of specific medical conditions or diseases.

“CTCs represent one of three important pillars of system integration for Abnova in the hierarchical organization and interrogation of tissue, cell, and protein,” said Dr. Wilber Huang, President and CEO of Abnova. “Clearbridge BioMedics has elegantly engineered a breakthrough CTC platform, which is unmatched by the competitors, specifically the ability to preserve cell viability after isolation. Up until now, the access to tissue samples is confined to the initial biopsy for diagnosis and staging workup followed by pathological confirmation of resected tissues. The opportunity for non-invasive “liquid biopsy” has tremendous potential in disease management, especially in molecular staging, personalized therapy and recurrence monitoring. Abnova has a plethora of research antibodies and FISH probes to catapult the research market, in addition to a full pipeline of novel IVD biomarkers under development, which are applicable to CTC platform including prostate, ovarian, and lung cancers."