Avacta reports on year of '˜significant progress' as it works on cures for cancer

Drug developer Avacta, which is working on cures for lung, breast and bowel cancer, said it has made significant progress over the past year.
Alistair Smith, CEO of Avacta.  Picture Bruce RollinsonAlistair Smith, CEO of Avacta.  Picture Bruce Rollinson
Alistair Smith, CEO of Avacta. Picture Bruce Rollinson

The Wetherby-based firm is to start human trials in 2020 to help cure people with lung cancer using its ground breaking technology. Avacta’s technology is based around Affimers - the firm’s high-tech alternative to antibodies.

Dr Alastair Smith, Chief Executive Officer of Avacta Group, said: “We are very pleased with the significant operational progress made over the past year which firmly underpins our progress towards key near term commercial and clinical milestones which represent major value inflection points for the Affimer platform and the group.

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“Based on the growing body of pre-clinical data generated by the in-house therapeutic programmes, and by the partnered programmes, the group has made significant progress in our partnering discussions. We are very confident that the group will deliver at least one substantial pharmaceutical licensing deal whilst the technology is still at a pre-clinical stage, during which, we remain focused on getting first-in-man clinical data in 2020.

“The joint discovery recently announced with Tufts University Medical School has become an important second programme in our therapeutic strategy, which is aimed at improving patient response beyond that achieved with simple immune-checkpoint blockade. We are particularly excited by the interest that this novel form of drug conjugate has generated with potential partners.”