Completes ?5.13m placing and Aptuscan acquisition

RNS Number : 2784V

Avacta Group PLC

10 January 2012

 



Press Release

10 January 2012

Avacta Group plc

("Avacta", or "the Company")

Completion of £5.13m Placing with Existing Investors

Completion of Acquisition of Aptuscan Limited

Further to the announcement made on 9 January 2012, Avacta Group plc (AIM:AVCT), a leading healthcare technology, reagents and consumables company providing proprietary analytical and diagnostics solutions to the life sciences/healthcare sector, is pleased to announce the completion of the Placing and the Acquisition of Aptuscan Limited, following admission of the Placing Shares, the Consideration Shares, the JSOP Shares and the Theragenetics Shares to trading on AIM ("Admission") at 8.00am this morning.

Following Admission, the number of ordinary shares in issue in the Company is 3,156,844,912.

The changes in Directors' holdings following Admission are shown below:

Director	Shares prior to Admission	Shares  prior to Admission (%)	Placing Shares	JSOP Shares	Shares post Admission	Shares post Admission (%)
Dr. Gwynfor Humphreys	16,459,169	1.0%	8,000,000	-	24,459,169	0.8%
Dr Alastair Smith	51,728,296	3.1%	2,000,000	114,414,973	168,143,269	5.3%
Timothy Sykes	5,285,384	0.3%	5,000,000	50,148,663	60,434,047	1.9%
Alan Aubrey*	12,133,419	0.7%	7,000,000	-	19,133,419	0.6%
Professor Anthony Robards	9,557,768	0.6%	4,000,000	-	13,557,768	0.4%

* Alan Aubrey is a member of the IP Group Concert Party, as described in the Circular. Post Admission the IP Group Concert Party, will be interested in 1,060,620,260 ordinary shares in the Company, representing 33.60% of the enlarged issued share capital. In the event of the future issue in full of the Reactivlab Shares (as defined in the Circular), the IP Group Concert Party may become interested in ordinary shares amounting to 33.67% of the enlarged issued share capital.

Full details of the take up of the Placing Shares, Consideration Shares, JSOP Shares and Theragenetics Shares can be found in the Circular and on the Company's website: www.avacta.com.

The above figure (3,156,844,912 ordinary shares) may be used by shareholders as the denominator for the calculations by which they will determine if they are required to notify their interest in, or a change to their interest in, Avacta under the FSA's Disclosure and Transparency Rules. 

For further information please contact:

Avacta Group plc Alastair Smith, Chief Executive Officer	Tel:  [phone] www.avacta.com
Nominated Adviser and Broker Panmure Gordon (UK) Limited Andrew Burnett/ Fred Walsh/ Charles Leigh-Pemberton/ Grishma Patel	Tel:  [phone] www.panmure.com
Media Enquiries Abchurch Communications Sarah Hollins/Adam Michael/Oliver Hibberd [e-mail]	Tel: [phone] www.abchurch-group.com

Terms defined in the Circular shall be given the same meaning in this announcement unless the context otherwise requires.

-Ends-

Notes to Editors:

Avacta Group plc, a world leading, UK-based healthcare equipment and instrumentation business, provides innovative, high value proprietary technologies and services to the life sciences/healthcare sector through two operating divisions:

Avacta Analytical provides high-end analytical instrumentation and services to the biopharmaceutical sector, expected to be a $200bn revenues market by 2013 and the fastest growing part of the pharmaceutical industry. The Group's technologies are aimed at reducing the risks and expense associated with biological drug development and thereby reducing the final cost of drugs to patients. The Group's lead analytical instrument, Optim, is distributed through Pall Corporation in the US and South East Asia, Isogen Life Sciences in Europe, Cold Spring Biotech Corp in China and Taiwan and DKSH in Japan. Avacta sells Optim directly in the UK.

Avacta Animal Health provides diagnostic products and services for the $1.5bn global veterinary diagnostics market. Its aim is to equip veterinary professionals with high quality animal health and well-being information, through point-of-care diagnostics, reagents and testing kits and laboratory based testing. Avacta's AX-1 point of care immunoassay system is aimed at providing the veterinarian with rapid blood test results in the clinic. The initial range of tests launched with the AX-1 relates to Avacta's world leading allergy testing brand Sensitest®. Avacta is currently developing further assays for the AX-1 system to diagnose other diseases in companion animals. Longer-term this technology will be transferred into the human clinical diagnostics market.

Avacta joined AIM in August 2006 and is based in Wetherby, England.

 

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