Avacta secures second Optim sale in US

RNS Number : 4829H

Avacta Group PLC

31 May 2011

 



Press release

31 May 2011

Avacta Group plc

("Avacta" or "the Group")

Avacta secures second Optim sale in US

to global pharmaceutical company

Pall Life Sciences makes first sale following recent appointment as distributor

Avacta Group plc (AIM:AVCT), a leading provider of analytical and diagnostic technologies and services to the pharmaceutical and animal healthcare sectors, is pleased to announce that its newly appointed sales and marketing partner for Optim in North America, Pall  Corporation (NYSE:PLL) ("Pall"), has secured its first Optim sale, to one of the ten largest pharmaceutical companies in the US.

Optim reduces the time and cost of drug development through the early analysis of compounds to identify those candidates most suitable for development and to define the optimal processing conditions. In the critical stages of pre-formulation, stability testing and formulation of biopharmaceutical drugs, Optim delivers vital information tens of times faster than other approaches using sample sizes less than a hundredth needed by existing techniques. Such efficiencies and cost reductions should allow drug developers to routinely gain important insights into candidate drug compounds at a much earlier stage of development. This in turn leads to a significant reduction in the likelihood of failure of drug compounds and reduces the overall costs of bringing new drugs to market.Optim comprises a benchtop instrument and a single-use sample holder providing recurring consumables revenues.

Pall Life Sciences, which provides cutting-edge products and services to the biopharma and biotech industries, was appointed as distributor for North America in February 2011. Pall has since been working with Avacta to generate new sales leads for Optim and has also been progressing the US sales pipeline that Avacta had grown before the distribution agreement was signed. In the short period since Pall's appointment, the Optim sales pipeline in the US has doubled following successful marketing events. Avacta has completed the first phase of training for Pall's sales and support teams and Pall has now closed its first sale to one of the largest global pharmaceutical companies.

Alastair Smith, Chief Executive of Avacta Group commented "The US is the major market for Optim and I am delighted with the energetic and proactive start that Pall has made as our commercial partner in North America. The urgency with which the Pall team has undertaken sales and support training, the successful delivery of marketing events that have had a positive impact on the number of sales leads and the closing of the first sale following a trial of the instrument by the customer, is very encouraging. Today's order means we have already met the target of twelve Optim sales in the current year. I look forward to reporting on further sales in due course and on the wider development of the commercial relationship with Pall."

-Ends-

For further information please contact:

Avacta Group plc Alastair Smith, Chief Executive Officer	Tel:  [phone] www.avacta.com
Broker XCAP Securities plc John Grant/Karen Kelly/David Newton	Tel:  [phone] www.xcapgroup.com
Nominated Adviser Grant Thornton Corporate Finance Philip Secrett/Colin Aaronson/David Hignell	Tel:  [phone] www.grantthornton.co.uk
Media Enquiries Abchurch Communications Sarah Hollins/Adam Michael/Simone Elviss/ Oliver Hibberd	Tel: [phone] www.abchurch-group.com

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, 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 and York, England.

About Pall Life Sciences

Pall Life Sciences provides cutting-edge products and services to meet the demanding needs of customers discovering, developing and producing biotech drugs, vaccines and classic pharmaceuticals. Pall technologies are also used to collect and process blood components and help protect patients from hospital-acquired infections. The company's membranes and membrane devices optimize detection and sample preparation in the drug research, clinical diagnostics, genomics, and proteomics markets. Pall is a leading provider of separation systems and single-use filtration and purification technologies to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to support faster development of new drugs and vaccines that are safer and require less energy and water to produce.

About Pall Corporation

Pall Corporation (NYSE: PLL) is a filtration, separation and purification leader providing solutions to meet the critical fluid management needs of customers across the broad spectrum of life sciences and industry. Pall works with customers to advance health, safety and environmentally responsible technologies. The Company's engineered products enable process and product innovation and minimize emissions and waste. Pall Corporation, with total revenues of $2.4 billion for fiscal 2010, is an S&P 500 company with more than 10,000 employees serving customers worldwide. To see how Pall is helping enable a greener, safer, more sustainable future, visit www.pall.com/green.

 

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