Director/PDMR Shareholding

RNS Number : 9550C

Avacta Group PLC

22 October 2020

 

22 October 2020

Avacta Group plc

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

Director/PDMR Shareholding

Avacta Group plc (AIM: AVCT), the developer of innovative cancer therapies and diagnostics based on its proprietary Affimer^® and pre|CISION™ platforms, has today been informed that Alastair Smith, CEO, has sold 248,543 ordinary shares of 10p each ("Ordinary Shares") at an average price of 180.28 pence per share ("Sale"). The proceeds of the Sale will be used to part-fund the purchase of a primary residence for Dr. Smith and his family.

Following the Sale, Dr. Smith will have 431,100 Ordinary Shares and 5,908,525 options over Ordinary Shares, representing 2.5% of the issued share capital.

The information communicated in this announcement is inside information for the purposes of Article 7 of Regulation 596/2014.

For further information from Avacta Group plc, please contact:

Avacta Group plc	Tel:  [phone]
Alastair Smith, Chief Executive Officer	www.avacta.com
Tony Gardiner, Chief Financial Officer
finnCap Ltd (Nominated Adviser and Joint Broker)	Tel: [phone]
Geoff Nash / Giles Rolls - Corporate Finance Tim Redfern, Sunila de Silva - ECM	www.finncap.com
Stifel Nicolaus Europe Limited (Joint Broker)	Tel: [phone]
Nicholas Moore / Nick Adams / Fred Walsh / Ben Maddison	www.stifel.com
Yellow Jersey PR (Financial Media and IR)	Tel: [phone]
Sarah Hollins / Henry Wilkinson		[e-mail]
Zyme Communications (Trade and Regional Media)	Tel: [phone]
Katie Odgaard	[e-mail]

About Avacta Group plc - www.avacta.com

Avacta is developing novel cancer immunotherapies combining its two proprietary platforms - Affimer® biotherapeutics and pre|CISION™ 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 $100 billion.  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 early 2021.

Avacta has established drug development partnerships with pharma and biotech, including with Moderna Therapeutics Inc., a deal with LG Chem worth up to $400 million, a partnership with ADC Therapeutics to develop Affimer drug conjugates and has established a joint venture in South Korea with Daewoong Pharmaceutical focused on cell and gene therapies incorporating Affimer immune-modulators. 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.

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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	Alastair Smith
2.	Reason for the Notification
a)	Position/status	Chief Executive Officer
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
	Identification code	GB00BYYW9G87
b)	Nature of the transaction	Sale of Ordinary Shares
c)	Price(s) and volume(s)	Price(s) Volume(s) 180.28 pence 248,543
d)	Aggregated information: · Aggregated volume · Price	As above
e)	Date of the transaction	21 and 22 October 2020
f)	Place of the transaction	London Stock Exchange

 

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