Avacta raises more than £1m from share placing

DIAGNOSTICS specialist Avacta Group today revealed that it had raised £1.38m, before expenses, from a share placing.

York-based Avacta was spun out of the University of Leeds and develops technology to speed up and reduce the cost of diagnosis.

The cash raised by the placing will be used to take Avacta "towards its near term goal of being a profitable business providing products and services to support the life sciences sector".

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The company recently announced the first sales of its initial product, Optim, which is designed to reduce risk and cost in the biopharmaceutical drug development process. Four units have been ordered.

In a statement, the company said: "While the order intake in the current difficult economic climate has been slower than hoped for, the pipeline of validated enquiries is very encouraging and the company is confident of seeing this strong interest in the product convert to accelerating sales over the coming months."

The company is expected to launch its first diagnostic product, Midas, into the veterinary healthcare market in the near term.

In a statement, the company added: "The funds raised will be used to support commercialisation of these new analytical and diagnostics products through improvements in infrastructure and manufacturing processes and through the enhancement of the company's commercial teams."