Avacta sees US pipeline speeding up

York-based Avacta yesterday said it has sold an Optim device to an unnamed US pharmaceutical giant, bringing its total sales of the diagnostics machine to nine.

Avacta, which was spun out of the University of Leeds, launched Optim in April 2009, but orders have been slower than it hoped for. Shares in the group lifted 15.6 per cent to 1.12p yesterday.

Chief executive Alastair Smith said: "North America represents about 50 per cent of the world market for Optim and this first sale to another of the top ten pharma companies is great news.

"We have now sold nine Optim units with five installed that are generating recurring revenues. In the last few months, we have generated around thirty serious leads in the USA and we have also agreed to put units into two US universities; Kansas and Colorado, both of which work closely with the biopharmaceutical sector and are highly influential in the US biotech market.

"We are working to appoint a US distributor shortly and I expect all of this activity to have a very positive impact on Optim sales in 2011."

Optim allows drug developers to gain vital information about compounds using tiny samples, more cheaply and quickly than other methods.

The device, which costs about 100,000, can do tests simultaneously – the work of three or four instruments – in just 75 to 90 minutes. Rival processes can take about 18 days. Avacta also hopes to earn significant recurring revenues from the device.