Avacta granted European patent for Affimer technology

(ShareCast News) - European and US regulators handed down further patent decisions in favour of Avacta´s Affimer biotherapeutics and research reagents, helping the company to consolidate its intelectual property portfolio.In Europe, authorities granted the Life Sciences group the main patent for its Affimer technology while in the States the regulator decided to issue a Notice of Allowance relating to US patent application 14/478,910, increasing the protection for that patent to the same level as in Europe.Avacta´s Affimer technology allows proteins to be designed in such a way that they 'stick' to other specific ones, helping to either detect them or to inhibit their normal functioning, with the latter possibly being of use to help treat cancer."The Company is engaged in developing such Affimer inhibitors of disease processes involved in cancer and blood clotting, as well as working with partners to provide Affimer therapeutics for their drug programmes," the company said in a statement.As of 15:17 BST shares in the AIM-listed outfit were up by 8.67% to 94.0p giving it a market capitalisation of £64.28m.