Increase in Fundraising

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Avacta Group plc

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

Increase in Fundraising

Avacta Group plc (AIM: AVCT), the developer of Affimer® biotherapeutics and reagents, announces that, further to its announcement made at 7:00 a.m. today, as a result of significant retail demand in the PrimaryBid Offer, the Company has increased the Fundraising to raise gross proceeds of, in aggregate, £48 million, before expenses, through the issue of up to 40,000,000 New Ordinary Shares at the Issue Price.

The Joint Brokers expect to close the bookbuild shortly, and the results of the Placing will be announced as soon as practicable thereafter. The timing for the close of the bookbuild and the allocation of New Ordinary Shares shall be at the absolute discretion of the Joint Brokers, in consultation with the Company.

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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