Avacta Group plc (LON:AVCT) CEO Alastair Smith joins DirectorsTalk to discuss the news that in just 4 weeks its successfully generated multiple Affimer reagents that bind the SARS-COV-2 viral antigen as part of the collaboration with Cytiva. Alastair reminds us what the partnership entails, explains what this now means and what we can expect from the collaboration and company going forward.
Avacta is developing novel cancer immunotherapies combining its two proprietary platforms – Affimer® biotherapeutics and pre|CISION™ tumour targeted chemotherapy. With this approach, the Company aims to address the lack of a durable response to current immunotherapies experienced by most patients. The Company’s therapeutics development activities are based in Cambridge, UK.
The Company benefits from near-term revenues generated from Affimer reagents for diagnostics, bioprocessing and research, through a separate business unit based in Wetherby, UK.
The Affimer platform is an alternative to antibodies derived from a small human protein. Despite their shortcomings, antibodies currently dominate markets worth in excess of $100bn. Affimer technology has been designed to address many of these negative performance issues, principally: the time taken, and the reliance on an animal’s immune response, to generate new antibodies; poor specificity in many cases; large size and cost.
