TIDMAVCT
RNS Number : 2177N
Avacta Group PLC
07 August 2017
07 August 2017
Avacta Group plc
("Avacta" or "the Group" or "the Company")
Trading Update and Notice of Results
Significant progress and substantial de-risking of the Affimer
therapeutics platform
Commercial traction for Affimer reagents building and multiple
licenses agreed
Avacta Group plc (AIM: AVCT), the developer of Affimer(R)
biotherapeutics and reagents, is pleased to provide a business and
trading update ahead of its results for the year ending 31 July
2017, which the Company expects to announce in full on Wednesday
4th October 2017.
Highlights
Affimer Therapeutics
-- Excellent progress in primary immuno-oncology programme (PD-L1 inhibitor)
o Multiple Affimer PD-L1 inhibitors generated and a lead Affimer
selected for further development
o Programme remains on track for first-in-man clinical trials in
2019
o Clear indication of efficacy in industry standard mouse
syngeneic model
-- Discovery programme delivering a pipeline of Affimer binders
to other important immuno-oncology targets
-- Excellent progress has been made in building a pre-clinical
dataset underpinning and significantly de-risking the broader
Affimer biotherapeutic opportunity. For example:
o Insignificant risk of immunogenicity of Affimer technology
demonstrated in first major trials on human samples
o Good pharmacokinetics of therapeutic Affimers shown in in vivo
models
o Efficacy of Affimer therapeutic demonstrated for the first
time in an animal model
o Good production yields of several important therapeutic
Affimer formats confirmed
o Rapid time scale for new Affimer discovery demonstrated with
multiple targets in immuno-oncology: major competitive
advantage
-- Partnership with Moderna expanded to include more drug targets
-- Collaboration signed with Sloan Kettering Cancer Center to
show potential of Affimer based CAR-T therapies: reporting H1
2018
-- Collaboration with Glythera established to demonstrate
suitability of Affimers as the targeting molecule in drug
conjugates: reporting H2 2017
Affimer Research and Diagnostics Reagents
-- Strong growth in pipeline of paid-for Affimer technology
evaluations with order book up 64% YOY. Focus on commercial
licensing opportunities with pharma, biotech, diagnostic and life
science tools companies. Examples include:
o Affimers for purification of therapeutic products from
biological samples generated for a North American life sciences
company: evaluation progressing well with potential for commercial
licensing
o Multiple Affimers provided to a large biotech to assist with
drug/target structural studies in oncology
o Affimers for point-of-care testing provided to a large global
consumer test developer for evaluation and potential licensing
-- Evaluations now beginning to deliver licensing agreements and
repeat business that will underpin medium and long term revenue
growth
o First license for development agreed with one of the top three
global diagnostics companies
o More than ten Affimer R&D licenses agreed for in-house use
and repeat business generated
o Reagents evaluations with pharma and biotech also leading to
potential therapeutics interest
Financial
-- Revenues for the year ended 31 July 2017 anticipated to
increase by 27% to GBP2.75m (2016: GBP2.17m) in line with market
forecasts
-- Cash position well ahead of market expectation at GBP13m (2016: GBP19.5m)
-- Loss before interest and taxation (LBIT) is expected to be in
line with market forecasts at GBP7.9m (2016: GBP5.7m)
Other Highlights
-- Affimer intellectual property portfolio
o Development of third generation of the Affimer technology
(further improved biophysical properties and broad IP coverage)
completed and patent application filed in July 2017
o First generation Affimer technology patents granted in EU, US
and China
-- Two new facilities completed in Wetherby and Cambridge totaling around 20,000 sq ft
-- Avacta Life Sciences team grown to 68
Dr Alastair Smith, Avacta Group Chief Executive Officer,
commented:
"I am very pleased indeed with the significant commercial and
technical progress that has been made in the past twelve months.
Interest in the Affimer technology from pharma and biotech is
growing as the technology becomes better known and its technical
benefits are demonstrated by data emerging from our in-house
programmes. Additionally, the results of our immunogenicity study
substantially de-risks the Affimer platform from a therapeutics
perspective, and gives us confidence as we aim to move our first
Affimer drug candidate into the clinic in 2019. I am confident that
this strong progress will lead to transformational therapeutic
licensing deals in due course.
We are also seeing very good growth in the number of paid-for
custom Affimer projects and evaluations in the diagnostics and
research markets and I am delighted that we have been able to
report the signing of the first agreement for Affimer product
development following a technology evaluation by one of the world's
largest diagnostics developers. A number of other evaluations are
advancing positively and we believe that these will lead to further
licensing deals which would result in long term royalty based
revenue growth from non-therapeutic applications.
I look forward to updating the market with the Company's
Preliminary Results in early October at which time I will also be
providing a detailed update on the therapeutic development plans
and pipeline."
For further information from Avacta Group plc, please
contact:
Avacta Group plc Tel: +44 (0)
Alastair Smith, Chief Executive 844 414 0452
Officer www.avacta.com
Tony Gardiner, Chief Financial
Officer
finnCap Ltd Tel: +44 (0)
Geoff Nash / Giles Rolls - Nominated 207 220 0500
Adviser www.finncap.com
Tim Redfern / Alice Lane - Corporate
Broking
Tel: +44 (0)
WG Partners 203 705 9318
Nigel Birks / Nigel Barnes Tel: +44 (0)
David Wilson / Claes Spang 203 705 9317
www.wgpartners.co.uk
Zyme Communications (Trade and Tel: +44 (0)7787
Regional Media) 502 947
Katie Odgaard katie.odgaard@zymecommunications.com
FTI Consulting (Financial Media Tel: +44 (0)
and IR) 203 727 1000
Simon Conway / Natalie Garland-Collins avacta@fticonsulting.com
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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