New Head of R&D Joins Avacta

RNS Number : 0115O

Avacta Group PLC

16 September 2013

 



Press Release

16 September 2013

Avacta Group plc

("Avacta" or the "Group")

New Head of R&D Joins Avacta

Dr Matt Johnson joins Avacta to Lead Affimer R&D and Production Operations

Avacta Group plc, a global provider of innovative diagnostic tools, consumables and reagents aimed at reducing the cost of human and animal healthcare, is pleased to announce that Dr Matt Johnson has joined Avacta to lead the Group's Affimer technology development and production teams.  Dr Johnson joins Avacta from Abcam plc, one of the leading providers of research antibodies, where he was Head of R&D.

In February 2012, Avacta acquired the intellectual property rights to Affimers, an alternative to antibodies based on a small, robust protein scaffold. Antibodies are used widely in life sciences R&D, diagnostics and therapeutics with total markets estimated at over $50billion annually. Antibodies are presently the only major class of "affinity" reagents available to these markets but they can have some technical and commercial deficiencies. There is therefore a significant opportunity for an alternative class of reagents that perform similar functions to antibodies but do not suffer from the same deficiencies.

Since acquiring the intellectual property, Avacta has established facilities to deliver its two main commercial objectives: the generation of Affimer based reagents as alternatives to antibodies in the general life sciences research market; and the production of very large Affimer microarrays as new and powerful tools for biomarker and drug discovery.

As announced in July 2013, Avacta recently raised £4.7million from a Placing of new Ordinary Shares to expand its capabilities and facilities and to commercialise the first Affimer products. The recruitment of Dr Johnson is an integral part of this expansion. At this critical point in Avacta's development and commercialisation of Affimers, he brings an in-depth understanding of the antibody market, emerging technologies and customer need as well as a strong technical and operational track record.

Alastair Smith, Chief Executive of Avacta Group, said: "I am delighted that Matt is joining Avacta to lead the Affimer development and operations team. It is a very strong validation of the potential of Affimers as an alternative to antibodies. Matt will work closely with the team to accelerate and de-risk the development programme and to deliver Affimer products to the market. He brings a wealth of technical, commercial and strategic experience and we are very much looking forward to working with him."

Dr Matt Johnson commented: "I am extremely excited to be joining Avacta at this time and I look forward to leading the development team and bringing the Affimer technology to market.  I see the Affimer technology as a fundamental and disruptive advance in affinity reagents particularly in terms of specificity and our ability to design in desired characteristics as part of the production process; that will ultimately lead to more specific reagents with better batch-to-batch consistency that researchers can trust."

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Enquiries:

Avacta Group plc Alastair Smith, Chief Executive Officer Tim Sykes, Chief Financial Officer	Tel:  [phone] www.avacta.com
Numis Securities Limited     Michael Meade / Freddie Barnfield - Nominated Adviser James Black - Corporate Broking	Tel:  [phone] www.numiscorp.com
Media Enquiries Abchurch Communications Sarah Hollins / Joanne Shears / Jamie Hooper [e-mail]	Tel: [phone] www.abchurch-group.com

Notes to Editors:

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

Avacta's products address one of the most significant global challenges facing mankind today - the rapidly rising cost of healthcare for a growing and ageing population.

The cost of healthcare is driven by many factors.  New drugs are expensive to develop, most don't reach the patient and those that do are often very costly to prescribe.  Inadequate, incorrect or slow diagnosis causes delays that lead to longer or less effective courses of treatment resulting in lengthy or repeated hospitalisation.

Avacta is dedicated to developing and providing innovative and practical tools to help drug developers get their products to market quicker and more reliably, and to providing clinicians with rapid and powerful diagnostics to improve patient treatment, helping to reduce the cost of healthcare worldwide.

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

For further information visit www.avacta.com

 

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