Avacta Group PLC Affimers in Scientific Publications
October 24 2017 - 2:00AM
RNS Non-Regulatory
TIDMAVCT
Avacta Group PLC
24 October 2017
24 October 2017
Avacta Group plc
("Avacta","the Group" or "the Company")
Record Year for Affimers in Scientific Publications
Avacta Group plc (AIM: AVCT), the developer of Affimer(R)
biotherapeutics and reagents, is pleased to announce that 2017 has
been a record year for scientific publications using Affimer
reagents, with nine scientific papers reporting the work of leading
groups world-wide.
Two recent papers from the world-renowned laboratory of David
Komander at the University of Cambridge have been published in two
important international journals - Molecular Cell, and Nature
Structural & Molecular Biology. These research articles
describe the use of Affimer reagents that recognise important cell
signals called the "diubiquitin linkages", which are thought to be
involved in a wide range of diseases. Affimers have been generated
that are specific to two of the diubiquitin linkages, for which no
antibodies exist and the work has revealed hitherto unknown
biology.
Another powerful example of the broad utility of Affimer
binders, as research and diagnostic reagents, was a paper in the
journal eLife from a group at the University of Leeds, in
collaboration with numerous other scientists around the world. In
this paper, the performance of Affimer reagents that bind to twelve
different targets was compared with antibodies across seven
different applications. The paper showcases the key benefits of
Affimer technology: high target specificity, intracellular
activity, small size and wide target range.
The interest that a scientific paper generates is assessed by
the tracking web site Altmetric. Altmetric ranks the attention that
the Affimer paper in eLife received, as being in the top 5% of all
the 8.4 million papers ever tracked.
Dr Alastair Smith, Avacta Group Chief Executive Officer,
commented:
"Independent scientific reports featuring Affimer reagents are
strong validations of the technology and highly influential
indirect marketing. During 2017, nine Affimer scientific papers
have been published, compared with two in 2016 and four in 2015,
and are being read by an ever widening audience; a strong
indication of the growing awareness and adoption of the Affimer
technology.
"As well as being a bumper year for Affimer publications, it is
particularly pleasing to see reports of Affimers' key benefits in
the most prestigious scientific journals and I look forward to
seeing this trend continue in 2018."
For further information from Avacta Group plc, please
contact:
Avacta Group plc Tel: +44 (0)
Alastair Smith, Chief Executive 844 414 0452
Officer www.avacta.com
Tony Gardiner, Chief Financial
Officer
finnCap Ltd Tel: +44 (0)
Geoff Nash / Giles Rolls - Nominated 207 220 0500
Adviser www.finncap.com
Tim Redfern / Alice Lane / Nikita
Jain - Corporate Broking
Tel: +44 (0)
WG Partners 203 705 9318
Nigel Birks / Nigel Barnes Tel: +44 (0)
David Wilson / Claes Spang 203 705 9217
www.wgpartners.co.uk
Zyme Communications (Trade and Tel: +44 (0)7787
Regional Media) 502 947
Katie Odgaard katie.odgaard@zymecommunications.com
Yellow Jersey (Financial Media Tel: +44 (0)7764
and IR) 947137
Sarah Hollins avacta@yellowjerseypr.com
About Avacta Group plc (www.avacta.com)
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 $100bn 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 protein targets.
Avacta has a pre-clinical biotech 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.
This information is provided by RNS
The company news service from the London Stock Exchange
END
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