Avacta Group Regulatory News (AVCT)

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Avacta Group plc

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

Result of Fundraising

Avacta Group plc (AIM: AVCT), the developer of Affimer® biotherapeutics and reagents, is pleased to announce that, further to its announcement made at 7:00 a.m. today, it has successfully completed the bookbuild of the heavily oversubscribed Placing which has now closed. The Fundraising has conditionally raised gross proceeds of, in aggregate, £48 million, before expenses, through the issue of 40,000,000 New Ordinary Shares at the Issue Price. The Fundraising was increased to accommodate significant retail demand in the PrimaryBid Offer.

Use of Proceeds

First Admission and Total Voting Rights

The allotment of 24,348,831 First Placing Shares and 2,005,451 New Ordinary Shares under the Subscription (together, the "First Admission Shares") is conditional upon (amongst other things) First Admission becoming effective, and is being carried pursuant to existing authorities and powers to allot shares on a non-pre-emptive basis. It is expected that the First Admission Shares will be admitted to trading on AIM at 8.00 a.m. on or around 10 June 2020 (or such later date and/or time as finnCap, Zeus, Beech Hill and the Company may agree, being no later than 8.00 a.m. on 10 July 2020).

Following First Admission, the total number of Ordinary Shares in issue will be 235,152,097. This figure may be used by Shareholders as the denominator for the calculations by which they will determine if they are required to notify their interest in, or a change to their interest in, the Company under the FCA's Disclosure Guidance and Transparency Rules.

Second Admission and Total Voting Rights

The allotment of 8,669,682 Second Placing Shares, 914,215 New Ordinary Shares under the Subscription and 4,061,821 New Ordinary Shares issued under the PrimaryBid Offers (together "Second Admission Shares") is conditional upon (amongst other things) the Placing Agreement not having been terminated, First Admission becoming effective, the passing of the relevant resolution(s) at the general meeting of the Company (notice of which will be included in a circular to Shareholders expected to be despatched shortly) and Second Admission becoming effective on or before 8.00 a.m. on 25 June 2020 (or such later date and/or time as finnCap, Zeus, Beech Hill and the Company may agree, being no later than 8.00 a.m. on 10 July 2020).

Following Second Admission, the total number of Ordinary Shares in issue will be 248,797,815. This figure may be used by shareholders as the denominator for the calculations by which they will determine if they are required to notify their interest in, or a change to their interest in, the Company under the FCA's Disclosure Guidance and Transparency Rules.

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

"Following encouragement from retail and institutional shareholders to re-capitalise the business to provide us with the resources to unlock the potential in the therapeutic and diagnostic pipelines, I am delighted to report that the placing has received overwhelming support from both institutional and retail investors leading to a bookbuild that was multiple times oversubscribed. I would like to thank our existing investors and welcome new shareholders to Avacta. We are very pleased to have added a significant strategic US investor to our register.

This substantial fundraising allows us to rapidly expand the in-house Affimer® and pre|CISION™ cancer therapy pipelines and scale-up the diagnostics business to expand the Affimer® diagnostic products pipeline. In the short term the funds will provide the Company with the working capital to support the development and manufacture of the COVID-19 antigen tests in development which, given the potential demand, could be transformational for Avacta.

The Board anticipates strong near-term news flow relating to the COVID-19 test developments with Cytiva and Adeptrix, as well as commercial and technical progress in the established therapeutic and diagnostics businesses, allowing the Company to concurrently achieve multiple value inflection points that we expect will deliver substantial shareholder returns. I look forward to updating the market on our continued progress."

Capitalised terms in this announcement shall have the meanings given to such terms in the Company's announcement at 7.00 a.m. today.

For further information from Avacta Group plc, please contact:

About Avacta Group plc - https://www.avacta.com

Avacta is developing novel cancer immunotherapies combining its two proprietary platforms - Affimer® biotherapeutics and pre|CISION™ tumour targeted chemotherapy. With this approach, the Company aims to address the lack of a durable response to current immunotherapies experienced by most patients. The Company's therapeutics development activities are based in Cambridge, UK.

The Company benefits from near-term revenues generated from Affimer reagents for diagnostics, bioprocessing and research, through a separate business unit based in Wetherby, UK.

The Affimer® platform is an alternative to antibodies derived from a small human protein. Despite their shortcomings, antibodies currently dominate markets worth in excess of $100bn. Affimer® technology has been designed to address many of these negative performance issues, principally: the time taken, and the reliance on an animal's immune response, to generate new antibodies; poor specificity in many cases; large size and cost. 

Avacta's pre|CISION™ platform, activates chemotherapy only in the tumour, thereby limiting systemic exposure and damage to healthy tissues, and thus improving the overall safety and therapeutic potential of these powerful anti-cancer treatments. 

By combining these two platforms the Company is building a wholly owned pipeline of novel cancer therapies with the aim of creating effective treatments for all cancer patients including those who do not respond to existing immunotherapies. Avacta expects to take its first drug, a pre|CISION™ targeted form of the standard-of-care Doxorubicin, into the clinic later in 2020 or early 2021.

Avacta has established drug development partnerships with pharma and biotech, including with Moderna Therapeutics Inc., a collaboration with LG Chem to develop treatments for autoimmune and inflammatory diseases worth up to $310m, a partnership with ADC Therapeutics to develop Affimer® drug conjugates and a joint venture in South Korea with Daewoong Pharmaceuticals to develop the next generation of stem cell therapies that incorporate Affimer® immuno-modulators. Avacta actively seeks to license its proprietary platforms in a range of therapeutic areas.

The Avacta diagnostics business unit works with partners world-wide to develop Affimers® for evaluation by those third parties with the objective of establishing royalty bearing license deals. The Company is also developing a small in-house pipeline of Affimer®-based diagnostic assays for licensing.

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