CelLBxHealth (AIM:CLBX), a CTC intelligence company developing circulating tumour cell technology for oncology research and diagnostics, said a peer-reviewed study has demonstrated the diagnostic potential of its Parsortix platform in glioblastoma (GBM), the most common aggressive brain tumour in adults.
Researchers at Fondazione Pisana per la Scienza and Ospedali Riuniti di Livorno in Italy used Parsortix to enrich CTCs from blood samples of 27 GBM patients, alongside healthy controls and non-GBM brain lesion cases. The study proposed the first numerical CTC threshold for GBM, where more than four CTCs per 5 mL of blood distinguished primary GBM patients from healthy controls with 80% sensitivity and 77.3% specificity.
The Parsortix-enriched CTCs carried tumour-related mutations and chromosomal changes matching those found in tumour tissue, indicating the captured cells reflected each patient's underlying tumour biology.
Radionecrosis and lymphoma samples yielded no detectable CTCs, a finding that could help clinicians distinguish tumour recurrence from treatment-related tissue change.
The results align with CelLBxHealth's own GBM research, presented as a poster at the Society for Neuro-Oncology's annual meeting in Hawaii in November.
"This study provides compelling independent evidence, aligned with our recently presented internal research, that Parsortix-enriched CTCs can provide biologically relevant information in GBM," said Lavanya Sivapalan, the company's chief scientific officer.
She said the proposed CTC threshold and genomic overlap with matched tumour tissue support further investigation of CTCs as a complementary liquid biopsy approach in a disease where repeat tissue sampling requires invasive neurosurgery.
News Intelligence what this means for the company
An independent peer-reviewed study in JCO Precision Oncology has validated CelLBxHealth's Parsortix platform in glioblastoma, showing that enriched CTCs carry tumour mutations matching tissue samples and can distinguish GBM patients from healthy controls with 80% sensitivity and 77.3% specificity using a threshold of more than four CTCs per 5 mL of blood. The validation matters because it moves the company's GBM evidence beyond internal research into published, third-party confirmation—critical for a diagnostics company seeking clinical adoption in a disease where repeat tissue sampling requires invasive neurosurgery.
This independent validation strengthens the clinical credibility of Parsortix in a new indication and supports the case for further development and commercialization in oncology. However, the company's revenue remains modest at £0.6m in H1 2026, so clinical validation alone does not yet translate to material revenue; the investment case turns on whether this evidence drives adoption by pharma partners, research institutions, or clinical labs.
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