TIDMAVCT
RNS Number : 5586N
Avacta Group PLC
21 January 2019
21 January 2019
Avacta Group plc
("Avacta", "the Group" or "the Company")
AGM Business Update and Notice of Results
Avacta Group plc (AIM: AVCT), the developer of Affimer(R)
biotherapeutics and reagents, is today holding its Annual General
Meeting at 2.00 pm. In conjunction with this meeting the Company is
pleased to provide a business update ahead of its results for the
six months ending 31 January 2019, which the Company expects to
announce on Tuesday, 9 April 2019.
Highlights
Affimer Therapeutics
-- Major development partnership and license agreement,
potentially worth over $300m, established with LG Chem Life
Sciences, part of the South Korean LG Group, to develop Affimer(R)
therapeutics for oncology and the treatment of inflammatory
diseases.
-- Continuing to make good progress towards the Company's primary objectives for therapeutics:
-- Generating first-in-human data for the Affimer drug platform as soon as possible,
-- Building a pipeline of innovative Affimer drugs with high clinical and commercial value, and
-- Securing significant partnerships and licensing deals for Affimer therapeutics.
-- Continuing to build the in-vivo pharmacology data packages
for our lead immune checkpoint programmes - PDL1 and LAG3
antagonists; aiming to initiate first-in-human clinical studies for
the Affimer drug platform in 2020.
-- Research collaboration and licensing agreement to access
novel drug conjugate technology developed at Tufts University
Medical School, Boston US, established to underpin pipeline of
innovative "TMAC" Affimer drug conjugates and combination
therapies.
-- Pre-clinical development of first TMAC drug conjugate has
started and initial in-vivo efficacy data from a combination of the
lead Affimer PD-L1 candidate with a DDP8/9 inhibitor looks very
promising.
-- Collaboration with Moderna (MRNA:NASDAQ) finalising
pre-clinical R&D; update planned for H1 2019.
Affimer Research and Diagnostics Reagents
-- Affimer reagents shown to be better than the leading products
in the "anti-idiotypic" reagents market which is estimated to be
worth $10-$20m per annum. Good commercial progress made in the last
six months with multiple large pharma customers placing orders for
Affimer reagents for detection and quantification of antibody
products in clinical studies and manufacturing.
-- A commercial license with New England Biolabs(R) (NEB(R) )
(Ipswich MA, USA), a global leader in the discovery and production
of enzymes for molecular biology applications, has been agreed
allowing NEB to commercialise a product using the Affimer
technology for use in both life science research and diagnostics
assays. Multiple further licensing deals expected through 2019.
-- Building a small proprietary pipeline of Affimer reagents
against specific diagnostic targets to create licensable assets
with the supporting data packages to accelerate the Company's
business development efforts.
Board and Senior Management
-- Dr Jose Saro was appointed in November 2018 to the role of
Chief Medical Officer to lead the pre-clinical and clinical
development of the Affimer(R) therapeutic platform. He has over 20
years' experience in the pre-clinical, translational and early
clinical development of oncology assets, spanning small molecules,
biologics and drug conjugates. Dr Saro joined Avacta from Roche
where he held the role of Senior Translational Medicine Leader at
the Roche Innovation Center Zurich.
Financial Update
-- Half year revenue, operating losses and cash balances in line with market forecasts.
The presentation to shareholders at today's AGM will be
available on the Company's website (www.avacta.com).
Dr Alastair Smith, Avacta Group Chief Executive Officer,
commented:
"It has been a period of very strong progress and I am
particularly pleased to have been able to report on a number of
major commercial partnerships for Affimer therapeutics and reagents
which further validate the technology and business model.
The partnership with LG Chem, a fully integrated pharmaceutical
company with world class biologics manufacturing and clinical
development capabilities, is a major milestone for the Company.
This deal, potentially worth over $300m and with a significant
upfront payment, was made possible by the excellent progress in our
in-house programmes that have generated the pre-clinical data which
are essential to successful business development activities. As we
expand those data-sets across our in-house programmes I am very
confident that we will see additional significant licensing deals
that transform the Company.
The research collaboration with leading scientists at Tufts
University Medical School is a major step forward for Avacta. If we
are to deliver our vision of extending the benefit of
immunotherapies to patients who do not respond to simple
immune-checkpoint therapies, then we must build a pipeline of
innovative Affimer immuno-therapies and the Tufts collaboration
will underpin that effort. The combination of PD-L1 and LAG-3
antagonists, plus other Affimers targeting different
immune-checkpoint pathways with the Tufts drug conjugates, has the
potential to both stimulate the innate immune response whilst
synergising with the adaptive immune response. This is an exciting
prospect that has got numerous large pharmaceutical partners
interested in the Affimer TMAC(TM) programme.
The licensing deal with New England Biolabs is a perfect example
of the type of deals we have in the pipeline of Affimer reagent
evaluations and I expect that we will see more of these deals
emerge in 2019 with both large and small partners across multiple
markets.
I am delighted that Jose Saro has joined the senior management
team as Chief Medical Officer. As we move our first programmes into
the clinic we are all looking forward to working with Jose to
validate the Affimer platform in-human and build an exciting
pipeline of valuable therapeutic assets.
I would like to extend my personal thanks, and that of the
Board, to Alan Aubrey, who is stepping down from the Board today,
for his contribution to the development of Avacta over many
years.
I look forward to updating the market on progress during 2019
which I expect to be a year of very significant progress for the
Company."
-Ends -
For further information from Avacta Group plc, please
contact:
Avacta Group plc Tel: +44 (0) 844 414 0452
Alastair Smith, Chief Executive www.avacta.com
Officer
Tony Gardiner, Chief Financial Officer
finnCap Ltd Tel: +44 (0) 207 220 0500
Geoff Nash / Giles Rolls - Nominated www.finncap.com
Adviser
Tim Redfern - ECM
Tel: +44 (0) 203 705 9318
WG Partners Tel: +44 (0) 203 705 9217
Nigel Birks / Nigel Barnes www.wgpartners.co.uk
David Wilson / Claes Spang
Turner Pope Investments Tel: 020 3621 4120
James Pope www.turnerpope.com
Ben Turner
Zyme Communications (Trade and Regional Tel: +44 (0)7787 502 947
Media) katie.odgaard@zymecommunications.com
Katie Odgaard
Yellow Jersey (Financial Media and Tel: +44 (0)7764 947137
IR) Tel: +44 (0)7544 275882
Sarah Hollins avacta@yellowjerseypr.com
Harriet Jackson
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 $100bn despite
their shortcomings. Affimer(R) 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(R) 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 as well as partnered development
programmes. Avacta is commercialising non-therapeutic Affimer(R)
reagents through licensing to developers of life sciences research
tools and diagnostics.
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END
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