Director/PDMR Shareholding

RNS Number : 3469U

Avacta Group PLC

22 November 2019

 

22 November 2019

Avacta Group plc

("Avacta", the "Company" or the "Group")

Director/PDMR Shareholdings

Avacta Group plc (AIM: AVCT), the developer of Affimer^® biotherapeutics and reagents, announces the following Directors' dealings undertaken for tax planning purposes:

Dr Trevor Nicholls, Non Executive Director, sold 108,333 ordinary shares of 10p each ("Ordinary Shares")  at a price of 17.50 pence per Ordinary Share and his ISA purchased 107,455 Ordinary Shares at a price of 17.63 pence per Ordinary Share.

Following the transactions, the total beneficial interest of Dr Nicholls is 107,455 Ordinary Shares, representing less than 0.1% of the total voting rights.

Details of the full notifications received by the Company are set out below:

Notification and public disclosure of transactions by persons discharging managerial responsibilities and persons closely associated with them

1.	Details of the person discharging managerial responsibilities / person closely associated
a)	Name	Trevor Nicholls
2.	Reason for the Notification
a)	Position/status	Non-executive Director
b)	Initial notification/Amendment	Initial notification
3.	Details of the issuer, emission allowance market participant, auction platform, auctioneer or auction monitor
a)	Name	Avacta Group Plc
b)	LEI	2138009U3EG31OPMGH36
4.	Details of the transaction(s): section to be repeated for (i) each type of instrument; (ii) each type of transaction; (iii) each date; and (iv) each place where transactions have been conducted
a)	Description of the Financial instrument, type of instrument	Ordinary Shares of 10p each
	Identification code	GB00BYYW9G87
b)	Nature of the transaction	Purchase of Ordinary Shares
c)	Price(s) and volume(s)	Price(s) Volume(s) 17.5 pence (sell) 17.63 pence (buy) 108,333 107,455
d)	Aggregated information: Aggregated volume Price	As above
e)	Date of the transaction	21 November 2019
f)	Place of the transaction	London Stock Exchange

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For further information from Avacta Group plc, please contact:

Avacta Group plc Alastair Smith, Chief Executive Officer Tony Gardiner, Chief Financial Officer	Tel:  [phone] www.avacta.com
finnCap Ltd (Nominated Adviser and Joint Broker) Geoff Nash / Giles Rolls - Corporate Finance Tim Redfern - ECM WG Partners (Joint Broker) Nigel Birks / Nigel Barnes David Wilson / Claes Spang	Tel:  [phone] www.finncap.com Tel:  [phone] Tel:  [phone] www.wgpartners.co.uk
Turner Pope Investments (TPI) Zoe Alexander / Andy Thacker Yellow Jersey PR (Financial Media and IR) Sarah Hollins Harriet Jackson Zyme Communications (Trade and Regional Media) Katie Odgaard	Tel: [phone] www.turnerpope.com Tel: [phone] Tel: [phone] [e-mail] Tel: [phone] [e-mail]

About Avacta Group plc - https://www.avacta.com

Avacta is developing novel cancer immunotherapies combining its two proprietary platforms - Affimer^® biotherapeutics and pre|CISION^TM tumour targeted chemotherapy. With this approach, the Company aims to address the lack of a durable response to current immunotherapies experienced by most patients. The Company's therapeutics development activities are based in Cambridge, UK.

The Company benefits from near-term revenues generated from Affimer reagents for diagnostics, bioprocessing and research, through a separate business unit based in Wetherby, UK.

The Affimer platform is an alternative to antibodies derived from a small human protein. Despite their shortcomings, antibodies currently dominate markets worth in excess of $100bn.  Affimer technology has been designed to address many of these negative performance issues, principally: the time taken, and the reliance on an animal's immune response, to generate new antibodies; poor specificity in many cases; large size and cost. 

Avacta's pre | CISION targeted chemotherapy platform, releases active chemotherapy only in the tumour, thereby limiting systemic exposure and damage to healthy tissues, and thereby improving the overall safety and therapeutic potential of these powerful anti-cancer treatments. 

By combining these two platforms the Company is building a wholly owned pipeline of novel cancer therapies with the aim of creating effective treatments for all cancer patients including those who do not respond to existing immunotherapies. Avacta expects to take its first drug, a pre | CISION targeted form of the standard-of-care Doxorubicin, into the clinic in the middle of 2020.

Avacta has established drug development partnerships with pharma and biotech, including with Moderna Therapeutics Inc., a deal with LG Chem worth up to $310m, and a partnership with ADC Therapeutics. Avacta actively seeks to license its proprietary platforms in a range of therapeutic areas.

Avacta diagnostics business unit works with partners world-wide to develop Affimers for evaluation by those third parties with the objective of establishing royalty bearing license deals. The Company is also developing a small in-house pipeline of Affimer-based diagnostic assays for licensing.

To register for news alerts by email go to www.avacta.com/investor-news-email-alerts

 

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