Avacta Group Regulatory News (AVCT)

15 November 2017

Avacta Group plc

("Avacta", "the Group" or "the Company")

Covance to Present Affimer Data at European Conference

Avacta Group plc (AIM: AVCT), the developer of Affimer® biotherapeutics and reagents, is pleased to announce that Covance will be presenting Affimer data from a joint study at the European Bioanalysis Forum 15-17 November 2017 in Barcelona. 

Covance will be presenting data that highlights the validation of Affimer as a critical reagent in clinical assays when good batch-to-batch stability and reproducible performance are a regulatory requirement.

The work carried out collaboratively between Avacta and Covance shows that an Affimer assay to detect and quantify the breast cancer drug Trastuzumab shows good sensitivity and increased assay dynamic range compared to current existing antibody based assays.

The study demonstrates that Affimer reagents have the potential to be used as alternatives to antibodies and natural ligands as critical reagents in regulated assays in the development and batch release of therapeutic antibodies.

Dr Alastair Smith, Avacta Group Chief Executive Officer, commented:

"Presentation of Affimer data by our partners is strong, independent validation of the technical performance of Affimer reagents and is important to our commercialisation of the technology. The Group is delighted that the results of this work will be presented at this important European conference by Covance, a global contract research organization that that has worked on all of the top 50 best-selling drugs available today.

Reagents such as antibodies or ligand proteins, currently used in regulated bioanalysis of therapeutic proteins have their limitations. Cost and batch-to-batch variability is a serious and costly issue in critical assays. The work with Covance shows that Affimers can provide a rapid solution in such assays and additionally benefit from stability of supply.

We are now working to capitalise on the commercial opportunity that this presents and I look forward to updating the market on progress in due course."

For further information from Avacta Group plc, please contact:

About Avacta Group plc (www.avacta.com)

Avacta's principal focus is on its proprietary Affimer® 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 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 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 and bleeding disorders as well as partnered development programmes. Avacta is commercialising non-therapeutic Affimer reagents through licensing to developers of life sciences research tools and diagnostics.

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About Covance

Covance Inc., a global contract research organization (CRO), is the world's most comprehensive drug development company. Covance is dedicated to advancing healthcare and delivering Solutions Made Real® by providing high-quality nonclinical, preclinical, clinical and commercialization services to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to help reduce the time and costs associated with drug development.

Covance also offers laboratory testing services to the chemical, agrochemical and food industries and are a market leader in toxicology services, central laboratory services, discovery services and a top global provider of Phase III clinical trial management services.