Avacta Group narrows loss as revenues rise

Biotherapeutic, research and diagnostic reagent developer Avacta Group announced its preliminary results for the year to 31 July on Monday, with revenues and losses in line with market expectations.

The AIM-traded company said it was well funded at period end, with cash balances of £19.52m.

Group revenues increased 19% to £2.17m during the year, with Avacta Life Sciences revenue improving to £0.7m from £0.44m, and Avacta Animal Health revenue up to £1.46m from £1.37m.

Its loss from continuing operations narrowed to £4.65m, from £4.89m a year ago, and the total loss for the period more than halved to £4.65m from £9.99m.

Avacta’s loss per share reduced to 6.86p from 20.09p.

“We have made excellent progress in our strategy to commercialise Affimer reagents for research, diagnostics and therapeutics,” said group chief executive Alastair Smith.

“There are a significant number of Affimer technology evaluations ongoing and we continue to grow our pipeline of partnerships that will ultimately deliver a stream of ‘Affimer-powered’ products to help underpin long term revenue growth from non-therapeutic applications.”

Smith said positive results from the first animal safety and efficacy studies with the company’s Affimer therapeutic programmes were an important milestone for Avacta.

“They significantly de-risk the Affimer technology as a therapeutic platform, demonstrating that Affimers have the right properties to be drugs in terms of serum half-life, functionality and efficacy in vivo.

“We have strengthened our belief that Affimers have the potential to become an important new class of biological drug that could eventually rival antibodies.”

Smith explained that the company was pleased with the success of its programme to develop specific Affimer binders to the Zika NS-1 protein, as it was a good example of the speed with which high quality Affimer reagents can be developed to answer an urgent need where there is a gap in the antibody offering.

“We are very optimistic about 2017 and I look forward to updating the market as we develop these and other products further with clinical and commercial partners.”