Share Option Awards to Management Team at Avacta

 

Avacta Group plc

 ("Avacta" or the "Company")

 Share Option Awards to Management Team at Avacta

LONDON and PHILADELPHIA - September 1, 2026 - Avacta (AIM: AVCT), a life sciences company developing innovative, targeted oncology drugs, announces that, on 28 August 2026, the Board of Directors granted share options under the Company's Equity Share Option Scheme incentive plan ("ESOS") to all members of the Management Team (the "Options"). The Options are exercisable at an exercise price of 69 pence per share, being the mid-market closing price of the Company's Ordinary Shares on 27 August 2026, the last trading date before the Options were granted.

​Christina Coughlin, Chief Executive Officer, has been granted 13,400,000 Options, Brian Hahn, Chief Financial Officer and Company Secretary, has been granted 2,000,000 Options and the remaining members of the Management Team have been granted 3,750,000 Options in total.

​In structuring the Option grants, advice was taken from a third-party consultant, the Talent Solutions team at Aon. The Options granted to Brian Hahn and management team members vest over four years (as do half of the Options granted to Christina Coughlin) according to the standard schedule described in the Avacta Equity Incentive Plan as set out in Appendix 1 to this announcement. The vesting of the additional half of the Options granted to Christina Coughlin is subject to certain performance-based achievements summarized in Appendix 1. All Options are subject to customary good leaver / bad leaver provisions pursuant to the terms of the ESOS. In addition, the Board and Dr. Coughlin have agreed to extend her notice period to 12 months.      

​Richard Hughes, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Avacta commented,

​"AVA6103 moving into clinic was a pivotal step for Avacta. Not only did it mark the Company's second pre|CISION drug in human trials, this was also the first demonstration of our proprietary controlled release technology in the clinic.  The speed and diligence with which the program has moved is demonstrative of Chris and her team's commitment to our pipeline.

"When I became Chairman three months ago, I said my core aim was to extract the maximum value from our intellectual property for shareholders. The pioneers of our intellectual property therefore need to be retained. This is especially important as the value of our assets increases, as our multiple data sets continue to mature in humans.

"The granting of options at the prevailing market price enables this retention as the options only have value to the extent that the value of Avacta increases, thereby locking in the key individuals who are critical to the future of Avacta and aligns their interests with all shareholders. 

​"As part of this package it has been mutually agreed that Chris will extend her notice period to 12 months."

The issue of Options to Christina Coughlin constitutes a related party transaction under Rule 13 of the AIM Rules for Companies.

The independent directors of the Company (being Richard Hughes, Patrick Vink, Paul Fry, Mark Goldberg and David Bryant) consider that the terms of the grant of Options to Dr. Coughlin are fair and reasonable insofar as the Company's shareholders are concerned.

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For further information from Avacta, please contact:

About Avacta - https://avacta.com/

Avacta Therapeutics is a clinical-stage life sciences company expanding the reach of highly potent cancer therapies through its proprietary pre|CISION® platform. pre|CISION® is a payload delivery system based on a tumor-specific protease (Fibroblast Activation Protein or FAP) that is designed to concentrate highly potent payloads in the tumor microenvironment while sparing normal tissues. Avacta's innovative pre|CISION® peptide drug conjugates (PDC) are a novel entry to the XDC drug class, leveraging the success of antibody drug conjugates with alternative methods of delivery beyond antibodies.

Our pre|CISION® PDCs leverage this tumor-specific release mechanism to provide unique benefits over traditional antibody drug conjugates, releasing active payload in the tumor and reducing systemic exposure and toxicity which enables dosing to be optimized to deliver the best outcomes for patients. The lead clinical program is faridoxorubicin (AVA6000), a Gen One FAP-enabled pre|CISION® version of doxorubicin that delivers the payload directly in the tumor with limited peripheral blood exposure and has demonstrated preliminary activity in tumor types sensitive to doxorubicin including salivary gland cancer and soft tissue sarcoma. 

About FAP-Exd (AVA6103)

AVA6103 is the second clinical candidate and is the first asset in the pipeline based on the Gen Two innovative pre|CISION^® sustained release mechanism that provides for prolonged release of payload directly in the tumor, minimizing systemic exposure. AVA6103 is being evaluated in the FOCUS-01 Phase 1 trial (FAP-Exd in Oncologic Cancers with Unmet needS). Preclinical data suggest this approach has optimized payload delivery with a high intratumoral concentration and prolonged exposure of released payload in the tumor, coupled with limited systemic exposure to the released payload. 

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Appendix 1: Terms of Vesting

Christina Coughlin, CEO

1. Time-based vesting

2. Performance-based vesting

Brian Hahn, Chief Financial Officer and Company Secretary of Avacta

Appendix 2: PDMR Notifications for the new options

Appendix 3: Directors'/PDMRs total Options after this new award: