Avacta Group Share News (AVCT)

(Sharecast News) - Biotherapeutics developer Avacta Group shipped out reagents for Covid-19 antigen testing to its diagnostic test development partners on Monday.
Avacta said it had manufactured multiple "highly specific Affimer reagents" that bind the SARS-COV-2 viral antigen, which were intended to be used by its partner to develop a point-of-care saliva-based Covid-19 antigen test strip

The London-listed group said the reagents had been supplied in the quantities required by Cytiva, the group's key partner, and had also been provided to Adeptrix, which Avacta will look to develop a Covid-19 laboratory test to run on hospital mass spectrometers.

"The Affimer reagents have also now been studied further by Avacta and, importantly, this has shown that there are Affimer reagents that can work in pairs, both binding to the spike protein at the same time," said Avacta.

"This allows tests to be developed that detect both the intact virus particle and the detached spike proteins which become separated from the virus particle during the development of the Covid-19 disease, which may also be important in monitoring disease progression."

As of 0840 BST, Avacta shares had climbed 7.96% to 122p.