Avacta Group Regulatory News (AVCT)

9 February 2015

Avacta Group plc

("Avacta" or "the Group")

Partnership to develop Affimer assays for the market leading multiplex platform

Avacta Group plc (AIM: AVCT), the global provider of proprietary diagnostic tools, consumables and reagents for human and animal healthcare announces that it has entered into a commercial partnership with ProtATonce, an approved Luminex partner, to develop and commercialise high performance multiplexed assays for the Luminex platform using Affimers.

ProtATonce is one of a number of exclusive Luminex partners selected to develop and commercialise multiplexed assays on the market leading Luminex xMAPTM platform which enables large numbers of biological tests to be conducted and analysed quickly using bead based assay kits. The bead based assay market is worth $270m and around half of these assays are run using Luminex assay kits. ProtATonce specializes in developing high quality assays with high degrees of multiplexing to support the pharmaceutical industry in drug discovery, mode of action analysis and drug repositioning.

The Luminex technology itself is powerful and capable of carrying out up to 500 tests in one experiment, but this high level of multiplexing is only possible if the antibodies that are used in the test kits are specific and show no cross reactivity between tests. However, the cross reactivity of antibodies practically limits the degree of multiplexing of the Luminex technology to around 50 tests.

Under the terms of the agreement Avacta will provide Affimers to ProtATonce who will develop Affimer based assays that take advantage of the engineered specificity of Affimers to unlock the high multiplexing potential of the Luminex platform. The aim is for ProtATonce to develop assay kits with market leading, disruptive levels of multiplexing and commercialise these through larger commercial partners. Avacta will be entitled to a 50% share of future revenues derived from the Affimer based Luminex test kits with an agreed minimum annual sales level.

Dr Alastair Smith, Group Chief Executive commented:

"The Luminex platform is the market leading bead based multiplexed assay platform and the potential of Affimers to overcome the problems of antibody cross reactivity which limit the overall performance of the technology is very exciting.

ProtATonce has an excellent reputation for developing high quality, highly multiplexed assays and they are an excellent partner for us to work with to establish Affimers in the Luminex assay market. Indeed, all multiplexed assay platforms are ultimately limited by the specificity of the affinity reagents and therefore proving Affimers on the Luminex platform will open up the wider multiplexed assay market.

I have no doubt that if we are successful in developing Luminex assays with market leading degrees of multiplexing then these products will become very attractive to a number of larger commercial partners in this market."

Dr Leonidas Alexopoulos, Chief Executive of ProtATonce said: "

"Affimers provide an exceptional alternative to antibodies. Their small size, specificity, and robustness make them ideal candidates for multiplex assays. This agreement with Avacta gives us the opportunity to develop multiplex assays using the Affimer technology. If successful, we are talking about the next big step in protein detection and a disruptive product for the multiplex market "

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