PlaqueTec joy as BIOPATTERN trial starts in 10 NHS patients

PlaqueTec has received the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) approval to continue its BIOPATTERN trial following recruitment of the first 10 patients with CAD (coronary artery disease).

The precision medicine company was founded in 2007 and is based at Babraham Research Campus.

The BIOPATTERN trial will use PlaqueTec’s proprietary blood sampling device, the Liquid Biopsy System (LBS), to collect samples at multiple sites along a patient’s diseased coronary artery.

The trial aims to recruit 300 patients with established CAD who have been scheduled for a coronary angiogram across eight UK NHS specialist cardiac centres. Four sites are now open, including lead site Royal Papworth Hospital in Cambridge, UK, where chief investigator Dr Stephen Hoole is an interventional cardiologist.

Dr Stephen Hoyle, consultant cardiologist, Royal Papworth Hospital, said: “By better targeting of new therapies to those patients at highest risk and who most need them, we hope to efficiently stabilise their disease and improve outcomes.”

Dr Simon Williams, PlaqueTec general manager, said: “Reaching the 10-patient landmark and securing MHRA approval to continue to recruit to the BIOPATTERN trial is a huge success and enables us to pursue our ambition of opening a new frontier of precision medicine for patients with CAD.”