14 December 2021

Fusion Antibodies plc

("Fusion" or the "Company")

Exercise of share options and total voting rights

Fusion Antibodies plc (AIM: FAB), specialists in pre-clinical antibody discovery, engineering and supply for both therapeutic drug and diagnostic applications, announces an exercise of share options in the Company ("Ordinary Shares") by Richard Buick, Chief Scientific Officer of the Company.

On 13 December 2021, Richard Buick exercised 20,000 share options. These share options were granted pursuant to the Company's EMI Employee Share Option Scheme with an exercise price of 54.5 pence per share.  The new Ordinary Shares issued pursuant to this exercise will be admitted to trading on AIM pursuant to the Block Admission announced by the Company on 27 September 2021. The notification below, made in accordance with the requirements of the UK Market Abuse Regulation, provides further detail.

Following the above exercise of 20,000 share options, Richard Buick holds 631,250 Ordinary Shares, representing approximately 2.43 per cent. of the Company's enlarged issued share capital.  

Following the exercise of share options, the total number of Ordinary Shares in issue is now 25,938,280. The Company does not currently hold any Ordinary Shares in treasury. Therefore, the total number of voting rights in the Company is 25,938,280, which may be used by shareholders as the denominator for the calculations by which they will determine if they are required to notify their interest in, or a change to their interest in the Company under the FCA's Disclosure Guidance and Transparency Rules.

The following notification, made in accordance with the requirements of the UK Market Abuse Regulation, gives further details. 

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About Fusion Antibodies plc

Fusion is a Belfast-based Collaborative Research Organisation ("CRO") company, listed on AIM, providing a range of antibody engineering services for the development of antibodies for both therapeutic drug and diagnostic applications.

Fusion provides a broad range of services in antibody generation, development, characterisation, optimisation, and small-scale production. These services include antigen expression, purification and sequencing, antibody humanisation using Fusion's proprietary CDRx^TM platform and cell line development, producing antibody generating stable cell lines optimised for use downstream by the customer to produce material for clinical trials. Since 2012, the Company has successfully sequenced and expressed over 250 antibodies and successfully completed over 200 humanisation projects for its international customer base, which has included eight of the top 10 global pharmaceutical companies by revenue.

At every stage, our client's vision is central to how we work in combining the latest technological advances with cutting edge science. In this work our world-class humanization and antibody optimization platforms harness the power of natural somatic hypermutation (SHM) to ensure the best molecule goes to the clinic. Fusion Antibodies' growth strategy is based on enabling Pharma and Biotech companies get to the clinic more effectively, using molecules with optimized therapeutic profile and enhanced potential for successful development and approval and, ultimately, on speeding up the drug discovery and development process. Fusion's use of SHM to create a fully human antibody library to capture the human antibody repertoire will address a continuing market need in antibody discovery,

Fusion Antibodies' emphasis on antibody therapeutics is based on the size and growth rate in the sector, with the market valued at $135.4 billion in 2018 and forecast to surpass $300 billion by 2025, a CAGR of 14.26%. As of May 2021, there were 100 approved antibody therapies on the market and more than 570 antibody therapies in clinical development.