MHRA Confirms Registration of Lateral Flow Test

7 June 2021

Avacta Group plc

("Avacta" or "the Group" or "the Company")

MHRA Confirms Registration of Avacta's AffiDX® SARS-CoV-2 Antigen Lateral Flow Test

Avacta Group plc (AIM: AVCT), the developer of diagnostics and innovative cancer therapies based on its proprietary Affimer® and pre|CISION™ platforms, is pleased to announce that the MHRA has confirmed registration of Avacta's AffiDX® SARS-CoV-2 antigen lateral flow test allowing the Company to place the product on the market in the UK for professional use.

Lateral flow antigen tests are intended to provide a cost effective and rapid means of identifying individuals with a high viral load that means they are more likely to infect others. The clinical data for Avacta's AffiDX® SARS-CoV-2 antigen lateral flow test reported in April demonstrated 100% sensitivity for identifying infectious individuals with viral loads measured by PCR of Ct<27.

Avacta has multiple ongoing commercial discussions with distributors and end user customers in countries that accept the CE mark for in vitro diagnostic products. The product registration by the MHRA allows the Company to sell the product in the UK for professional use and the Company expects product registration from a Competent Authority within the EU to follow shortly.

Dr Alastair Smith, Chief Executive Officer of Avacta Group, commented:

"I am delighted to receive confirmation of the registration of the AffiDX® SARS-CoV-2 antigen test from the MHRA. It is a transformative milestone for Avacta's Diagnostics Division being the first CE marked product powered by the Affimer® platform that has been brought to market.

"The excellent results of the recent clinical evaluation of the test at a clinical site in Europe demonstrate the test has excellent sensitivity across a range of viral loads, which would be considered infectious. 

"As part of the study the same clinical samples were tested with two leading, commercially available lateral flow antigen tests, and the data show that the AffiDx® test has superior clinical sensitivity across the range of samples and in particular at lower viral loads.

"We are very excited by the potential of this high-quality SARS-CoV-2 rapid antigen test and by the interest it has already attracted from potential commercial partners and distributors. We will continue to focus on its commercial roll-out and manufacturing scale-up to meet demand.

"Lateral flow tests have a crucial role to play in helping our society and economy return to normal, and I am confident that the AffiDX^® test will now play a significant part in this process."

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About Avacta Group plc - https://www.avacta.com

Avacta Group is developing novel cancer immunotherapies and powerful diagnostics based on its two proprietary platforms - Affimer® biologics and pre|CISION™ tumour targeted chemotherapies.

The Affimer platform is an alternative to antibodies derived from a small human protein. Despite their shortcomings, antibodies currently dominate markets, such as diagnostics and therapeutics, worth in excess of $100bn. Affimer technology has been designed to address many of these negative performance issues, principally: the time taken to generate new antibodies and the reliance on an animal's immune response; poor specificity in many cases; their large size, complexity and high cost of manufacture.

Avacta's pre|CISION targeted chemotherapy platform releases active chemotherapy in the tumour, which limits the systemic exposure that causes damage to healthy tissues, and thereby improves the overall safety and therapeutic potential of these powerful anti-cancer treatments.

The Group comprises two divisions: The therapeutics development activities are based in Cambridge, UK and the Group is generating near-term revenues from Affimer reagents for diagnostics, bioprocessing and research, through a separate diagnostics business unit based in Wetherby, UK.

Avacta's Diagnostics Division works with partners world-wide to develop bespoke Affimer reagents for third party products. The Group is also developing an in-house pipeline of Affimer-based diagnostic assays including the AffiDX® SARS-CoV-2 Lateral Flow Rapid Antigen Test and AffiDX® BAMS™ SARS-CoV-2 Assay in partnership with Adeptrix Inc.

Avacta's Therapeutics Division is addressing a critical gap in current cancer treatment - the lack of a durable response to current immunotherapies experienced by most patients. By combining its two proprietary platforms the Group is building a wholly owned pipeline of novel cancer therapies deigned to be effective for all cancer patients. In 2021 Avacta will commence a phase 1 first-in-human, open label, dose-escalation and expansion study of AVA6000 Pro-doxorubicin, the Group's lead pre|CISION™ prodrug, in patients with locally advanced or metastatic selected solid tumours.

Avacta has established drug development partnerships with pharma and biotech, including a research collaboration with ModernaTX,Inc. (formerly Moderna Therapeutics Inc.), a multi-target deal with LG Chem worth up to $400m, a joint venture in South Korea with Daewoong Pharmaceutical focused on cell and gene therapies incorporating Affimer immune-modulators, a partnership with ADC Therapeutics to develop Affimer-drug conjugates and a collaboration with Point Biopharma to develop radiopharmaceuticals based on the pre|CISION™ platform. Avacta continues to actively seek to license its proprietary platforms in a range of therapeutic areas.

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