Refresher on all the great news!31 May 2020 22:20
Seems we have a few trolls and de-rampers here. I think it's time for a refresher on all the great news we've had over the past couple of months!
Avacta are creating a COVID-19 antigen test using their Affimer reagents. This will tell you whether you currently have COVID-19, not just whether you've had it in the past.
-The Affimers are said to be highly specific and don't cross react with similar coronavirus such as SARS and MERS.
-The sample will be saliva and the result will take ten mins. This removes the false negative issue brought about by poor swabbing technique.
-To be available to both professionals and consumers.
-Cytiva are not expected to be the only partner. The market for this product is huge, so the need manufacturing capacity will need to be as great as possible.
-To my knowledge, the only declared competition is Sona Nanotech.
8th April
Avacta announce collaboration with Cytiva to develop COVID-19 antigen test. At this time, Avacta already had Affimer reagents which detected Covid-19 and said Cytiva would be putting this onto their platform. Cytiva were formerly called GE Healthcare. They are based in the USA, have around 54,000 employees and revenues of billions.
9th April
CEO has small appearance of Good Morning Britain
16/17th April
CEO on Talk radio and Sky news
22nd April
Avacta announce they are ahead of schedule and look forward to updating the market on other commercial partners.
1st May (BAMS testing)
Avacta announce a second partnership, this time with Adeptrix. This is to use the Affimers to create a high throughput lab test (exceeding the capacity of the current PCR testing), allowing labs to utilise their mass spectrometer machines which are currently sat dormant in regards to COVID-19 testing.
11th May
Avacta announce Affimers sent to Cytiva. Furthermore, they state the Affimers can bind to the COVID-19 spike proteins in pairs. They can even bind the spike proteins which become separated during the development stage of the disease. Both European CE marking and USA FSA approval stated as being aims. Avacta believe they will have "the best possible COVID-19 test."
15th May (Neutralising Affimers)
Avacta announces it's Affimers can block COVID-19 interactions within the body and there is significant potential for a therapy. Avacta seeking a partner to develop this with.
20th May
Avacta announces a new company called Medusa-19 is being set up (by the founder of Boohoo) to be the direct to consumer distributor. Initially this was not taken well by the market, probably because it wanted to see an established company doing this. However, this resulted in a wave of publicity which was likely the cause for a rise in the share price.
The current position:
The market was seemingly hopeful of news by the end of May so we've seen a small retrace, probably as short term holders become impatient and move their money elsewhere hoping to catch a rise. There's a lot of possible news to
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