Avacta Group PLC Re Agreement (4314N)
May 18 2015 - 2:01AM
UK Regulatory
TIDMAVCT
RNS Number : 4314N
Avacta Group PLC
18 May 2015
18 May 2015
Avacta Group plc
("Avacta" or "the Group")
Therapeutic licensing partnership with Moderna Therapeutics,
Inc.
Avacta Group plc (AIM: AVCT), the global provider of proprietary
diagnostic tools, consumables and reagents for life sciences,
announces that Avacta Life Sciences has entered into a
collaboration, licensing and option agreement with Moderna
Therapeutics, Inc. ('Moderna').
Under the terms of the agreement, Moderna will make an upfront
payment of $500,000 which provides Moderna exclusive access to
Affimers against certain targets which may be extended to include
additional targets by a further payment. Moderna will also make
certain payments to Avacta for research services to deliver
pre-clinical development milestones.
Moderna has the option to enter into exclusive license
agreements for selected therapeutic Affimer candidates for clinical
development and in each case Avacta will be entitled to milestone
payments. The total value of these payments could reach several
tens of millions of dollars. Avacta is also entitled to royalties
in connection with future product sales.
Alastair Smith, Avacta Group Chief Executive commented: "This
agreement represents a significant opportunity for Avacta with
tangible, near term revenues from upfront payments and research
services, with additional milestone payments and royalties on
future sales of therapeutics. It is a transformational deal for
Avacta and Affimers and I am absolutely delighted to be working
with Moderna, a leader in this exciting new field of mRNA
therapeutics.
"The collaboration with Moderna is an important validation of
the Affimer technology, highlighting the potential for Affimers to
become a real alternative to antibodies. I have no doubt that this
early adoption of Affimers in the therapeutic field will act as a
catalyst for others and it represents a step change in the
valuation of the Affimer technology."
Enquiries:
Avacta Group plc Tel: +44 (0)
Alastair Smith, Chief Executive 844 414 0452
Officer www.avacta.com
Tim Sykes, Chief Financial Officer
Numis Securities Limited Tel: +44 (0)
Michael Meade / Freddie Barnfield 207 260 1000
- Nominated Adviser www.numiscorp.com
James Black - Corporate Broking
Media Enquiries Tel: +44 (0)
Walbrook PR Ltd 207 933 8780
Mike Wort / Anna Dunphy avacta@walbrookpr.com
Notes to Editors
Avacta Group plc (www.avacta.com)
Avacta Group plc is a global provider of innovative
technologies, consumables and reagents for the life science
markets, from drug discovery to diagnostics. Avacta's principal
focus is on its proprietary Affimer(R) 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 $50bn despite
their shortcomings. Affimers have 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. Affimers are 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 is commercialising the Affimer reagents through custom
Affimer services to provide bespoke solutions to customers, via a
growing on-line catalogue of Affimer reagents and, in the longer
term, by developing Affimers with therapeutic properties for
out-licensing.
This information is provided by RNS
The company news service from the London Stock Exchange
END
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