Business
Collaboration Agreement
Collaboration Agreement.
About this update from Avacta Group Plc
[{"type":"text","content":"\n \nAvacta Group plc\n\nCollaboration Agreement with UCB and sponsorship from the DTI\n\nAvacta Group plc (\"Avacta\" or the \"Company\"), which develops detection and\nanalysis technology aimed at the defence & security, pharmaceutical and\nclinical diagnostics markets, announces an agreement with UCB's Celltech\nAntibody Centre of Excellence (\"UCB\") together with the commencement of a\nDepartment of Trade and Industry (\"DTI\") sponsored Collaborative Research and\nDevelopment project.\n\nAvacta will be the lead partner, working with UCB, in developing analytical\ntechnology to measure the biophysical properties of therapeutic antibodies and\ndevelop algorithms that use these data to predict properties that are critical\nto later stage performance.\n\nAvacta believes that strong demand exists in the biopharmaceutical industry for\ntechniques to analyse very small quantities of biological therapeutic materials\nat an early stage of the development process. The analytical techniques it is\ndeveloping with UCB are aimed at enabling companies to measure or predict\ncertain key properties of experimental compounds at an early stage in the\ndevelopment pipeline, prior to committing further investment. The goal is to\npredict as early as possible whether problems related to properties such as\naggregation, stability and viscosity will occur in later stages of development,\nmanufacturing or delivery.\n\nUCB will own the intellectual property rights generated relating specifically\nto its therapeutic molecules, whilst Avacta will own the rights to the new\nanalytical technology and predictive tools.\n\nAvacta plans to monetise the results of this project through one or more routes\nincluding potentially the supply of innovative instrumentation, licensing of\nthe developed technologies and the provision of high value contract screening\nservices via Avacta's analytical services subsidiary.\n\nProf. Alastair Smith, Chief Executive, Avacta, commented:\n\n\"There are difficulties faced by biopharmaceutical companies in predicting\ntherapeuticprotein performance at an early stage, thereby leading to increased\nrisk of eventual product failure. This project addresses these issues by\ndeveloping innovative biophysical tools for the rapid analysis of small volumes\nof compounds and predictive tools which may reduce the attrition rate of...