‘Momentous milestones’ ahead for life sciences company
Wetherby-based life sciences business Avacta has seen its revenues increase to £1.8m in its interim results for the period ended 30 June 2020.
It compares to £1.1m for the six months to 30 June 2019, and £5.5m in the 17 months to 31 December 2019.
The listed business has pointed to “several momentous milestones ahead” as it recorded an operating loss of £8.1m as a result of an increase in research and amortisation of development costs to £4.2m.
Meanwhile, fundraisings completed during the period raised £53.8m to expand the firm’s Diagnostics and Therapeutics programmes.
Avacta is seeking to take its first pre|CISION targeted chemotherapy into clinical trials in early 2021.
And the company has been collaborating with Cytiva to develop a rapid test for the Covid-19 coronavirus antigen for mass population screening.
It is also working with USA-based Adeptrix to develop a Affimer-based SARS-CoV-2 antigen bead-assisted mass spectrometry test to be used on hospitals’ existing mass spectrometers to diagnose Covid-19 infection.
Avacta has announced an exclusive distribution agreement with Medusa19 Limited for direct-to-consumer sales of a saliva-based rapid test for the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein antigen.
Its results report notes: “The rapid coronavirus antigen testing opportunity is significant; there is likely to be a long-term need for very high volume Covid-19 testing to support the global process of controlling the disease, getting healthy people back to work and rebuilding economies.
“In the UK alone, the demand for antigen testing in the community could be as high as 100 million tests per month in the medium-term.
“There is also likely to be a long-term need for antigen testing as the disease will remain in some societies for many years.”
Alastair Smith, chief executive officer of Avacta Group, said: “We have several momentous milestones ahead of us with the anticipated launch of a rapid, saliva based coronavirus antigen lateral flow test and the planned phase I study for AVA6000 pro-doxorubicin, the first pre|CISION pro-drug.
“There are multiple other opportunities in the pipeline that have been created by the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein binding Affimers, such as the BAMSTM assay with Adeptrix and several others that we will update the market on in due course.
“We are working tirelessly to bring all of these opportunities to the point of revenue generation as quickly as we possibly can.
“The recent placing has also allowed us to resource an expanded Affimer immunotherapy and pre|CISION chemotherapy pipeline and substantially increase the size of the research and clinical development teams at our Cambridge site to deliver on this.
“I am very pleased indeed that we now have the resources available to begin to unlock the potential of these two innovative and powerful therapeutic platforms.”
Commenting further on the results, Smith added: “Considering the circumstances they’ve been outstanding. We’ve been able to stay on track and make so much progress within both divisions of the business and much of that has been down to the fantastic attitude of our staff.
“We’ve had some working from home since lockdown began, but the key challenge has been for our laboratory staff who of course can’t work from home.
“We’ve been making sure they can remain socially distanced while working in the lab. But we’re now taking on more space in Wetherby and Cambridge, as we don’t see this situation going away for quite a significant period of time.
“The extra space means we’ll be able to get everyone back into work while remaining socially distanced.”
He said the business is working closely with its partners on the technology transfer required for the developing Covid-19 tests.
“It’s difficult to put a timeline on this process, as I don’t want to be misleading,” he stressed. “We do first need to get to the point where we have a robust, scaled up manufacturing process. We expect to be in clinical validation by the fourth quarter.”
