Avacta Group PLC 2 Biotech's Licence Affimers for Research Use (7379F)
May 22 2017 - 2:00AM
UK Regulatory
TIDMAVCT
RNS Number : 7379F
Avacta Group PLC
22 May 2017
22 May 2017
Avacta Group plc
("Avacta" or "the Group" or "the Company")
Two US biotech companies licence Affimer reagents for research
use
Exclusive licence deals follow successful custom Affimer
evaluations
Avacta Group plc (AIM: AVCT), the developer of Affimer(R)
biotherapeutics and research reagents, is pleased to announce that
two leading US biotech companies have separately taken exclusive
rights to Affimer reagents for research and development use, to
support their respective drug development programmes.
Avacta has developed the Affimer technology platform to provide
proprietary, high quality reagents to Life Sciences companies for
therapeutic, diagnostic and research use. The Company continues to
deliver on its licensing model under which it provides bespoke
Affimer reagents, via fully funded development projects, for third
party research use, incorporation into both diagnostic and other
products, and for therapeutic development.
Following technical evaluations, Avacta has agreed exclusive
licensing arrangements for bespoke Affimer reagents with two US
based biotech companies. In line with deals of this nature and
sensitivity commercial terms cannot be disclosed.
The first, a global top fifteen biotech company, needed an
Affimer reagent to capture a human protein with no cross-reactivity
against the same protein from other species commonly used in drug
development, such as rodent. No antibodies exist that are capable
of providing this "species specificity" and the new Affimer reagent
will allow the biotech partner to develop previously unavailable
assays to support its drug development activities. A number of
Affimer reagents which met these demanding criteria were generated
by Avacta and, under the terms of the agreement, the biotech
partner has been allowed to take exclusive rights to one of those
Affimer molecules for research use.
The second, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, wished
to detect a certain human protein, mutations of which are known to
lead to worse overall survival rates in some cancers. This protein
is one of a group of very similar proteins and no antibodies are
available that can differentiate reliably between the different
members of this protein family. Avacta was able to generate several
Affimer reagents that met these requirements and the US
biopharmaceutical company has taken exclusive rights to one of
these Affimer reagents to support its in-house drug discovery
programmes in oncology.
Dr Alastair Smith, Avacta Group Chief Executive Officer,
commented:
"These two custom Affimer reagent licensing deals are further
evidence of the ability of Affimer technology to meet challenging
requirements for use in real world applications when, to date,
antibodies have been unable to provide a satisfactory solution.
At this early stage of commercialisation such successes are
important factors in building awareness and adoption of the Affimer
technology, which is key to allowing us to deliver on our strategy
of executing therapeutic and diagnostic licensing deals.
This excellent progress follows the recent exclusive licensing
deal with a top three global diagnostics company and I look forward
to being able to update the market again in the near future."
ENDS
Avacta Group plc Tel: +44 (0) 844 414
Alastair Smith, Chief Executive 0452
Officer www.avacta.com
Tony Gardiner, Chief Financial
Officer
finnCap Ltd Tel: +44 (0) 207 220
Geoff Nash / Giles Rolls 0500
- Nominated Adviser www.finncap.com
Tim Redfern / Alice Lane
- Corporate Broking
Tel: +44 (0) 203 705
WG Partners 9318
Nigel Birks / Nigel Barnes Tel: +44 (0) 203 705
David Wilson / Claes Spang 9217
www.wgpartners.co.uk
Zyme Communications (Trade Tel: +44 (0)7787 502
and Regional Media) 947
Katie Odgaard katie.odgaard@zymecommunications.com
FTI Consulting (Financial Tel: +44 (0) 203 727
Media and IR) 1000
Simon Conway / Natalie avacta@fticonsulting.com
Garland-Collins
Notes to Editors
For further information from Avacta Group plc, please
contact:
About Avacta Group plc (www.avacta.com)
Avacta's principal focus is on its proprietary Affimer(R)
technology which is a novel engineered alternative to antibodies
that has wide application in Life Sciences for diagnostics,
therapeutics and general research and development.
Antibodies dominate markets worth in excess of $50bn despite
their shortcomings. Affimer technology has been designed to address
many of these negative performance issues, principally; the time
taken to generate new antibodies, the reliance on an animal's
immune response, poor specificity in many cases, and batch to batch
variability. Affimer technology is based on a small protein that
can be quickly generated to bind with high specificity and affinity
to a wide range of protein targets.
Avacta has a pre-clinical biotech development programme with an
in-house focus on immuno-oncology and bleeding disorders as well as
partnered development programmes. Avacta is commercialising
non-therapeutic Affimer reagents through licensing to developers of
life sciences research tools and diagnostics.
This information is provided by RNS
The company news service from the London Stock Exchange
END
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