AGM Statement

RNS Number : 4158Y

Avacta Group PLC

24 January 2014

 



Avacta Group plc

("Avacta" or the "Group")

AGM Statement

Avacta Group plc (AIM: AVCT), the global provider of proprietary diagnostic tools, consumables and reagents for human and animal healthcare, will hold its Annual General Meeting of shareholders at 2pm today at the offices of Walker Morris Solicitors, 12 King Street, Leeds, LS1 2HL.

At the meeting the Chief Executive, Alastair Smith, will provide shareholders with the following update:

Trading for the first half of fiscal 2014 is in line with market expectations.

We have seen good progress in Avacta Analytical in the first half of this financial year following the launch of the re-engineered Optim2® early in 2013 and a strong growth in the number of units shipped in the second half of last year. This improved shipping run rate has continued this year assisted by our commercial partners and by direct sales in Europe.

Avacta Animal Health continues to concentrate on one of its core strategic objectives of expanding its business outside of the historical focus on allergy. Most notably, the unique canine lymphoma blood test was launched recently in the UK and the company is now establishing a route to market for this test in North America. There are several other new diagnostic tests to be added to the portfolio in the coming months. New tests will be commercialised initially through test kits and lab services (under the brand names Sensipak® and SensiTest®) whilst being adapted for delivery on the Sensipod® point of care in-clinic platform. There is an opportunity for strong, short term growth in sales through the kits and lab services which are important to secure as well as delivering on the longer term benefits from Sensipod® which will be driven by the larger point of care test menu we are developing.

We are pleased to report that Avacta Life Sciences is making good progress towards its first commercial offering of a custom Affimer reagents service.  This service aims to provide high quality Affimer binders to customers' targets. Later in the year this will be added to by the launch of a catalogue of internally generated Affimers against targets where there are gaps in antibody availability and highly commercial targets. The company continued to make progress with its Affimer proteomic microarrays and is establishing high quality and robust manufacturing processes needed to supply large quantities of arrays for validation studies. Several partners with commercially and clinically interesting tissue samples for biomarker analysis have already been recruited for these validation studies. The data provided by these validation studies will underpin commercial launch of Affimer proteomics arrays which is anticipated late in 2014.

At the Annual General Meeting Gwyn Humphreys will step down as Chairman of Avacta Group and Tony Robards will step down from the Board as a non-executive Director. Trevor Nicholls, who joined the board in September 2013, will take over as Chairman.  On behalf of the Board I wish to thank Gwyn and Tony for their contributions over the past few years. Trevor brings considerable senior commercial role experience including Chief Commercial Officer and Executive Vice President of Affymetrix. His experience of commercialising products in the life sciences sector which will be of great benefit to Avacta as it grows over the coming few years. 

Enquiries:

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

 

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