Gunsynd Regulatory News (GUN)

Evocutis plc

("Evocutis" or "the Company")

Directorate Change

Evocutis plc (AIM: EVO), the company focussed on advanced laboratory and clinical evaluations of skincare products for the health and cosmetic markets, announces that Dr. Stephen Jones has tendered his resignation as a director of the Company, in order to take up a position at another company in an unrelated healthcare business.

Dr. Jones has agreed to continue as Chief Executive Officer of the Company for a further six months until 3 October 2012 or, if earlier, until a new Chief Executive Officer has been appointed.

The Company has commenced, with immediate effect, the process to identify a new Chief Executive Officer to continue the commercialisation of Evocutis' expertise in Microbiology, Clinical Services and the company's unique human skin equivalent product Labskin™. Shareholders will be informed once a new Chief Executive Officer has been appointed.

Tom Bannatyne, Chairman, commented: "We are grateful for Stephen's contribution in bringing Evocutis together, and he leaves the group well positioned for continued growth, as the commercial roll-out of our product and service offering accelerates. We are also pleased that Stephen has agreed to stay on in his post in order to minimise any disruption to customers, and to the business as a whole. We wish him well in his future endeavours."

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About Evocutis plc

With a rich portfolio of new product opportunities, Evocutis offers antimicrobial and dermatological expertise to the cosmetic, consumer healthcare and pharmaceutical industries. Being uniquely able to combine research for laboratory testing, advanced skin models and clinical testing, Evocutis offers a complete service for the development of skin care products and ingredients. Through research and testing we enable our clients to advance the discovery of skin care products that actually work.

Offering high quality contract research services, Evocutis specialises in Human Skin Microbiology, tissue culture systems and Human Volunteer and Clinical Dermatology Research. Unique characteristics of its colonised full thickness model of human skin (LabSkin™) allow rapid, cost effective screening of, for example, anti-ageing, anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial ingredients and products for use on skin. Additionally, the clinical, human volunteer testing facility that is housed on-site provides rapid, bespoke evaluation of dermatological products.

When it comes to advanced laboratory and clinical evaluations of skincare products for the health and cosmetic markets, the Evocutis focus is simple: intelligent and specialised R&D input. 

For further information, please see www.evocutis.com

About LabSkin™

LabSkin™ is an animal-replacement technology, that emulates living skin tissue and is a high value research and product testing tool for the cosmetic and healthcare industries. It is a full thickness human skin model, comprised of both dermal and epidermal layers, and is produced exclusively and reproducibly on site at Evocutis from primary human cells (keratinocytes & fibroblasts). The model exhibits a fully differentiated epidermal layer, which provides a completely dry surface for tailored testing requirements.

LabSkin™ is highly versatile, and alongside its antimicrobial model, Evocutis is developing models to test anti-ageing and moisturising products. The antimicrobial LabSkin™ model allows testing using pathogenic microorganisms which would not be possible in human clinical studies. In addition, methods have been developed to allow LabSkin™ to be inoculated with skin washings taken directly from human skin, thus providing a step-change in the quality of data possible from a laboratory model. By benchmarking activity against best-in-class products, the activity of new ingredients and formulations can be assessed for several antimicrobial endpoints, including immediate kill, rate of kill and residual activity.

Recent research indicates that our natural microflora is an integral part of our skin and makes a significant contribution to skin health. LabSkin™ provides a unique living skin surface which is validated for microbial applications and can simultaneously provide information on irritation, penetration, barrier function and skin structure.