Covid test leader Avacta getting excited about commercial potential

Avacta is looking forward to “very exciting milestones” scheduled for 2021 after a “momentous year” for the life sciences business.

The Wetherby-based business is at the forefront of the Covid-19 testing developments, and has created what it believes is the most sensitive S1 spike lateral flow test currently available.

Earlier this week it revealed data from its clinical validation which confirmed hopes for the test. It has several agreements in place that will provide manufacturing capabilities that can be scaled to several millions of tests per month.

Avacta has confirmed that demand is strong from distributors, licensing partners and large-scale end users and it has “the potential to generate substantial revenues”.

Excitement around the commercial potential of its Covid tests, which can deliver results in 20 minutes, has been a key driver in its share price rocketing in the last year.

It was trading at 20p at the beginning of April 2020 and closed last night at 256p, valuing the company at £650m.

Avacta is also making progress in its therapeutics division, which is developing commercial opportunities for its affimer technology.

Affimers are an alternative to antibodies taken from a small human protein and are being used by Avact to address a critical gap in current cancer treatment.

“There is no doubt that 2020 was a momentous year for Avacta,” said Dr Alastair Smith, chief executive officer of Avacta Group.

“I am enormously proud of the entire team who have been instrumental in delivering this transformational growth and creating substantial commercial and clinical opportunities for the group for 2021 and beyond, despite the difficult working conditions imposed on laboratory working by the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Avacta raised £53.8m in 2020 to fund its research and development, enabling it to expand its diagnostics and therapeutics programmes.

It had £47.9m cash at the end of the year, having incurred losses of £18.9m.

Upcoming milestones include self-declaration of the CE mark of its Covid test for professional use and commercial launch in early May, and the first data on the effectiveness of its targeted chemotherapy platform pre|CISION in humans by the end of the year.