Avacta Group plc
Licensing Agreement
Avacta Group plc ("Avacta" or "the Company"), the biophysics company which
provides innovative high value technologies and services to the
biopharmaceutical and diagnostics markets, announces that it has entered into
an agreement with EV (Medical Screening) Limited ("EV") for the exclusive
worldwide rights to Avacta's laser based breath diagnostics technology.
Avacta acquired the above technology in 2007 and has developed it into a viable
method of breath diagnostics and industrial gas sensing with several prototypes
having been completed.
EV is focused on becoming a world leading breath diagnostic company and has
identified Avacta's technology as being capable of providing an accurate and
sensitive method of detecting certain gases in human breath. EV is focused
initially on non-invasive methods of screening the population for, and
monitoring the treatment of, diabetes and expects to bring products to market
within two years based on Avacta's and other technologies. This represents a
multi-billion dollar worldwide market and Avacta will receive a royalty of 10%
of net sales on products developed using its technology.
Alastair Smith, Chief Executive, Avacta Group plc commented:
"It is well recognized that there is a huge potential market for a non-invasive
screening/monitoring tool for diabetes. The Avacta gas analysis technology has
the potential to provide a rapid, non-invasive and accurate method of screening
the population for diabetes and this is an area that Avacta had identified as
ideal for its technology for some time. Our limited resources have not allowed
Avacta to focus on human diagnostic applications to date but this license
agreement with EV will accelerate the commercialisation of the technology in a
valuable application area."
20 September 2010
Enquiries:
Avacta Group plc Tel: 0844 414 0452
Alastair Smith, Chief Executive Officer www.avacta.com
Tim Sykes, Chief Financial Officer
Broker Tel: 020 7101 7070
XCAP Securities Limited www.xcapgroup.com
John Grant/Karen Kelly/David Newton Tel: 020 7383 5100
Nominated Adviser www.grantthornton.co.uk
Grant Thornton Corporate Finance
Philip Secrett/Colin Aaronson
Haggie Financial LLP Tel: 020 7417 8989
Nicholas Nelson
Notes to Editors:
About Avacta
Avacta was spun-out from the University of Leeds in 2004 by its current
management team as a biophysics company, with the aim of combining the
disciplines of physics and biology to develop innovative technologies and
expert technical services to address unmet needs in the biopharmaceutical and
healthcare sectors. Avacta has a core bio-analytical technology development
programme addressing the needs of the biopharmaceutical sector to fully
characterise their new products at the earliest stage in their development to
reduce the risk of late stage failure. High end analytical instruments and
leading edge contract research services are being provided to the
biopharmaceutical and healthcare/personal-care materials sectors through
Avacta's biotech support division, Avacta Analytical. High value solutions for
rapid, point of care diagnostics based on these core bio-analytical
technologies, with a near term focus on veterinary diagnostics, are being
delivered through Avacta Animal Health. Longer term these technologies will be
transferred into the human clinical diagnostics market. Avacta listed on AIM in
August 2006.

