Avacta Group PLC Technical Update: Affinity Separation
November 23 2016 - 2:01AM
RNS Non-Regulatory
TIDMAVCT
Avacta Group PLC
23 November 2016
23 November 2016
Avacta Group plc
("Avacta" or "the Group" or "the Company")
Avacta demonstrates key performance benefits of Affimer
technology for affinity separation
-- Avacta to present Affimer performance data at bioProcessUK, 23-24 November.
-- Affimer technology shown to offer key performance benefits
compared to antibodies and other technologies in this
application.
-- Affinity separation market is worth $0.5bn and growing at 10% pa.
Avacta Group plc (AIM: AVCT), the developer of Affimer(R)
biotherapeutics and research reagents, is pleased to announce that
the Company will present data that highlights the competitive
performance of Affimers in affinity separation applications at
bioProcessUK on 23-24 November 2016 in Newcastle, UK. Affinity
separation is one of three non-therapeutic applications that the
Company highlighted in its strategic plan presented earlier in the
year.
Affinity separation is used to purify biological molecules from
complex mixtures by capturing them using antibodies or other
binding agents such as Affimers. The affinity separation market
ranges from small, laboratory scale separation systems up to very
large, industrial bioprocessing systems capable of handling
thousands of litres of a product. The Company believes that this
market is worth around $0.5bn in total with growth being driven
strongly by the growth of the biopharmaceutical and biotechnology
sectors. The market is also responding to demand for better
performance, new systems to purify emerging product classes,
re-usability in some applications and improved economics.
During the past six months the Company has been benchmarking
Affimer technology against accepted market performance standards
and will present data at bioProcessUK on 23-24 November 2016 which
show that Affimer technology is highly competitive in a number of
ways:
-- Affimer purification systems show excellent stability and can
be regenerated for re-use at least one hundred times, if required,
because of the compatibility of the Affimer technology with harsh
washing conditions.
-- Affimer reagents are highly specific to the target and can be
generated against targets which are difficult or not possible for
antibodies because of the in-vitro selection process used to
generate new Affimer reagents.
-- The binding capacity of a prototype Affimer based
purification system has been shown to be comparable to established
commercial products.
Dr Alastair Smith, Chief Executive Officer, Avacta,
commented:
"We have previously identified affinity separation as a
commercially attractive, non-therapeutic application for the
Affimer technology where we could foresee significant competitive
advantages over existing technologies. We have since focused our
non-therapeutic development efforts on this application, along with
lateral flow rapid diagnostics and immunoassays.
I am delighted to report that the detailed marketing data pack
for affinity separation that we have generated as planned clearly
validates the relative performance benefits of Affimer technology
in this application. Indeed, we have been able to produce,
in-house, a prototype Affimer separation column that has superior
stability characteristics and comparable binding capacity to
established commercially available alternatives. We are now in a
strong position with credible supporting data to partner the
Affimer technology in this market, particularly in the areas of
biologics production and small scale sample separation for
diagnostics and research."
ENDS
Notes to Editors
For further information from Avacta Group plc, please
contact:
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
David Wilson Tel: +44 (0) 203 705
Nigel Barnes 9217
Claes Spang 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 Media Tel: +44 (0) 203 727
and IR) 1000
Simon Conway / Natalie Garland-Collins avacta@fticonsulting.com
About Affinity Separation
Affinity separation is used to concentrate or purify a
particular substance out of a complex mixture. This is generally
achieved by flowing the mixture through a tube or column packed
with plastic beads, the surfaces of which have been modified with
an affinity reagent such as an Affimer molecule or antibody making
these beads "sticky" for the substance of interest. The packed
column of beads presents a very large surface area for the mixture
to flow over and around increasing the likelihood of the substance
of interest being captured. Once the mixture has been flowed
through the column, the substance of interest that has been
captured on the beads is flushed out by selecting wash conditions
that will free it from the affinity reagent.
Affinity separation can be applied at laboratory scale in which
a substance of interest is purified from millilitres or fractions
of millilitres of a mixture, either as part of a production process
or as a preparatory step for analytics or diagnostics. It can also
be applied at much larger scale in bioprocessing where thousands of
litres of a mixture are handled in columns measuring up to metres
in diameter. Laboratory scale affinity separation systems are often
single use whilst larger systems are regenerated and used many
times which requires reasonably harsh washing conditions to clean
the product for re-use.
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 also 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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