Avacta Group Regulatory News (AVCT)

Avacta expands into new facilities in Cambridge and Wetherby

Expansion provides significant increase in laboratory space

Wetherby and Cambridge, UK, 16th August 2016: Avacta Group plc (AIM: AVCT) ("Avacta" or "the Group"), the developer of Affimer® biotherapeutics and research reagents, today announced it has opened two new facilities, in Cambridge and Wetherby, Yorkshire. The new buildings almost double the Company's overall footprint, which increases from 9,500 to 18,500 sq ft, including new state-of-the-art laboratory facilities.

The new laboratories and office space have been established to allow for operations at both sites to expand to meet increasing commercial demands and accommodate Avacta's growing R&D programme.

The new Cambridge site is located on the Lion Works Business Park in Whittlesford, and covers 5,500 sq ft, of which ~70% houses laboratories. In Wetherby, the Thorp Arch Estate has provided a new 13,000 sq ft building which Avacta has fitted with offices and laboratories accommodating around 60 FTEs.

Dr Alastair Smith, Chief Executive Officer, Avacta, said: "I am delighted with the new labs that the Company now has in place in Wetherby and Cambridge. The teams will be working in truly world class facilities that will also help in attracting talented new staff and will present the Company well to potential customers and partners."

ENDS

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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 $75bn 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 targets to enable diagnostics, research assays and therapeutics.

Avacta has a pre-clinical therapeutic 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.