Avacta ‘delighted’ with Affirmer progress

Wetherby-based Avacta makes devices to speed up and reduce the cost of drug development. Avacta has created a high-tech alternative to antibodies called Affimers which act as binding proteins.

The company announced its interim results for the period ended January 31 2015.

In the statement, Avacta said it had made significant progress towards operational targets for the financial year for Affimer product development and production capacity.

Alastair Smith, the chief executive, said: “I am delighted with the progress made by the Affimers business in the last six months. We are seeing commercial traction build for custom Affimer research reagents with orders from large pharma, smaller biotech and academia as well as good growth in the pipeline of sales enquiries to support future sales.

“The catalogue is growing ahead of the rate we forecast and, whilst I reiterate that I expect custom Affimer sales will perform in advance of catalogue sales for the next couple of years, the catalogue represents an attractive, high margin, recurring revenue opportunity in the longer term.

“We have seen very strong interest in Affimers as a therapeutic platform technology, even at this very early stage, with strategic partnerships established with several small biotechs. This is helpful in validating Affimers in a way that I believe will catalyse further, larger deals.

“Avacta Animal Health launched cLBT in the US market and expects to follow with further offerings in both the UK and US markets in coming months as we seek to add innovative new diagnostics alongside the existing allergy products.

“The recent disposal of the analytical business activity to a US acquirer reflects the strategy we have pursued for the past couple of years to focus resources on Affimers and the board continues to believe that this strategy will deliver the greatest value to shareholders. It is a very exciting time for Avacta and I look forward to the next opportunity to update the market.”