First therapeutic licensing agreement for Affimers

RNS Number : 6942Q

Avacta Group PLC

17 October 2013

 



17 October 2013

Avacta Group plc

("Avacta" or the "Group")

First therapeutic licensing agreement for Affimers

Avacta Group plc (AIM: AVCT), a global provider of proprietary diagnostic tools, consumables and reagents for human and animal healthcare, announces that it has signed a licensing agreement with UK biotechnology company, Blueberry Therapeutics Ltd ("Blueberry"), to use Affimers in the development of new therapies for the treatment of drug resistant bacterial infection.

Under the terms of the deal, Avacta will provide proprietary Affimers to Blueberry for their drug development programmes in infectious diseases.  As part of this deal Avacta has already supplied the first lead Affimer.

Affimers are engineered alternatives to antibodies. The platform is based on a small human protein that can be engineered to bind with high specificity and affinity to a wide range of protein targets thereby creating a potentially large menu of affinity reagents. Avacta is focused on the commercialisation of Affimers as reagents for research and Affimer microarrays which provide a powerful drug and biomarker discovery tool. In addition, Avacta is actively seeking licensing opportunities to commercialise Affimers as therapeutics, as with this initial deal with Blueberry.

Commenting on the deal, Alastair Smith CEO of Avacta said: "Our agreement with Blueberry is another important milestone achieved for Avacta by the life sciences division. Whilst Avacta will focus on non-therapeutic applications of the Affimer technology we are very well aware of the potential value as a therapeutic platform and this deal represents the first independent evaluation of our Affimer technology in this area. It also confirms the utility of Affimers as affinity reagents and will raise the profile of Affimers for other pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies around the World. I look forward to being able update the market on our progress with Affimers as general life sciences reagents and in microarrays, as well as on other therapeutic partnerships, in due course."

John Ridden, CEO of Blueberry said: "We at Blueberry are delighted to be working with Avacta and using their innovative Affimer screening platform to deliver starting points for new medicines. We are looking forward to a long and productive relationship together."

Enquiries:

Avacta Group plc	www.avacta.com
Alastair Smith, Chief Executive Officer	Tel:  [phone]
Tim Sykes, Chief Financial Officer
Numis Securities Limited	Tel:  [phone]
Michael Meade / Freddie Barnfield (NOMAD)
James Black  (Corporate Broking)
Walbrook PR Ltd	Tel: [phone] or [e-mail]
Paul McManus	Mob: [phone]
Mike Wort	Mob: [phone]

About Avacta Group plc - www.avacta.com

Avacta Group plc is a global provider of innovative technologies, consumables and reagents for the life science markets, from drug discovery to diagnostics. Avacta operates through three divisions:

Avacta Analytical www.avactaanalytical.com	High throughput analysis instrument, Optim, to help reduce the cost and risk of drug development.
Avacta Animal Health www.avactaanimalhealth.com	Veterinary diagnostics reference laboratory, diagnostic kits and newly launched in-clinic blood analyser, Sensipod.
Avacta Life Sciences www.avactalifesciences.com	Novel non-antibody affinity reagents called Affimers, with a wide range of Life Science applications in diagnostics, drug and biomarker discover and biotech research and development.

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

About Affimers

Affimers are an engineered alternative to antibodies that have been designed to address issues with specificity, batch to batch variability, current antibody assay limitations, the length of time taken to generate new binders and limitations on potential targets imposed by the use of animals (e.g. targets which would be toxic to the animal). 

Affimers are generated by high throughput screening of a highly diverse library in vitro, so there is no animal immunization step. The whole process is complete in weeks as opposed to months and significantly less target material is required for the screen than for traditional antibody production.  Affimers are derived from a human protease inhibitor which makes them inherently robust and the core Affimer structure has been engineered to have no cross-reactivity with other proteins, making them ideal as affinity reagents. They are also small which gives them good tissue penetration which is important in some therapeutic applications and, since they are easily modified by adding dyes and other labels, Affimer reagents are ideal as contrast agents in imaging.

About Blueberry Therapeutics.

Blueberry Therapeutics Limited is an innovation driven drug discovery and development company developing new medicines for the treatment of infectious and inflammatory diseases with high unmet medical need. Our current priorities are in tackling bacterial and fungal infections with additional programs in inflammatory bowel disease and atopic dermatitis. Blueberry was incorporated in 2011 with the aim of delivering drug programs through to clinical proof of concept testing in both humans and companion animals.

Website: www.blueberrytherapeutics.com

 

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