Avacta Share Discussion Threads

[wan] 20/5/2016 07:55

I thought that the first market approval for PD-L1 was also another news worthy item. Roche has received market approval for atezolizumab to treat a common type of bladder cancer. It’s the 3rd checkpoint inhibitor on the market, and the first to target PD-L1. Others are following of course -

Merck KGaA, Pfizer’s PD-L1 hope shows potential in rare skin cancer
by Ben Adams | May 19, 2016

These data come just a day after Roche became the first drugmaker to bring a PD-L1 drug to the market with Tecentriq (atezolizumab) for bladder cancer. It follows on the success of Merck’s ($MRK) Keytruda and the market-leading Opdivo from Bristol-Myers Squibb ($BMY), which are both PD-1 inhibitors that treat melanoma and other oncology indications.

[contact2fsnetcouk] 19/5/2016 22:56

...On that note, for the recent hires who may be being awarded options (who perhaps see or know something that the market is currently unaware of?), I don't suppose they will be particularly worried by a lower share price at this juncture!

Indeed, they may be buying more in small handfuls?

[spekky] 19/5/2016 21:03

I saw the article on antibiotic resistance and immediately thought about the Blueberry deal.Somethings got to give here.Thanks to all contributors,still trying my patience but this must come good,surely.

[wan] 19/5/2016 15:13

Yes the news flow regarding antibiotic resistance offers potential and indeed reward via the suggested “market entry reward”. Recall that Avacta signed a licensing agreement back in October 2013 with UK Blueberry Therapeutics Ltd, to use Affimers in the development of new therapies for the treatment of drug resistant bacterial infection. Under the terms of the deal, Avacta will provide proprietary Affimers to Blueberry for their drug development programmes in infectious diseases.

Blueberry Therapeutics are using nanotechnology based formulation approaches to deliver peptide and peptide aptamer (which is what an Affimer is) therapeutics into bacteria and fungi to either break resistance, and use in combination with standard antibiotics, or to act as a novel antibiotic with the ability to kill pathogens. They are also working with state of the art small molecule drug design concepts to generate new and interesting antibiotic and antifungal chemical templates as starting point for new therapies either with or without our nanotechnology based formulations.

Blueberry are certainly active, but without any specific update it's anyone's guess as to what stage they are at with regard to Affimers. Blueberry can raise funds too -

5th May 2016
Blueberry Therapeutics raises £3M to progress the development of its lead topical antifungal


Some stocks are rewarded for potential (depending on their track record), but currently with Avacta it's a case of show us the money, even though Avacta have attracted some relatively high calibre talent (who must have seen something Mr Market is missing?). On that note, for the recent hires who may be being awarded options (who perhaps see or know something that the market is currently unaware of?), I don't suppose they will be particularly worried by a lower share price at this juncture!

[mrangry2] 19/5/2016 15:12

Isn't there a phrase "you'll end up eating your jam"? Something like that anyway. ;-)

[the drewster] 19/5/2016 13:02

"POTENTIALLY" yes.
Potential has little to no value with jam-tomorrow type stocks on AIM today.

[mrangry2] 19/5/2016 12:21

I don't understand why Avacta shares fall when one of the day's main news items is that the world must urgently tackle a growing drug resistance. Aren't Affirmers a help here?

[the drewster] 13/5/2016 10:07

This COULD be seriously big business one day. A hugely exciting jam-tomorrow type play. For a glimpse of the potential scale of the rewards on offer, consider these two tables:

Individual antibody figures:


Top drug revenues

[wan] 13/5/2016 08:51

Thanks for the heads-up Mr Angry.

[mrangry2] 12/5/2016 12:28

Recording and slides from last week's Investor Presentation is now on the Avacta website. Look under "Documents".

[wan] 06/5/2016 12:43

Yesterday I attended the Avacta Investor Presentation. I thought the overall presentation and indeed the individual contributions from the management team were both professional and very informative. The commercial strategy is now far more focused and the team appears to be more than up to the job. In particular, being able to meet and chat with some of the team in person (post presentation) provided for an important interaction that's obviously missing from the usual company communications, and provided for further useful and informative exchanges.

Immuno-oncology once again featured in both the presentation and conversations and is being described as one of the hottest area of interest in biopharma, even for pre-clinical assets! To exemplify this and by way of background, the following deal announced yesterday is again being done at an early stage and in this case before proof of concept and appears to be aligned to where Avacta are heading with their in-house program, importantly this one involves an alternative to antibodies (and one which I was fully aware of) -

May 5th 2016
BIND Therapeutics Announces Collaboration with Affilogic to Provide BIND with Access to Targeting Ligands that are Key Modulators of Anti-tumor Immunity
Research collaboration enhances BIND’s ability to develop ACCURINS® that bind immuno-oncology targets



Biopharma appears to be in a race to secure the next-generation of immuno-oncology assets/technology, in particular there is a clear push towards collaborating and/or obtaining assets where a unique combinatorial strategy can be pursued and developed. As came across in the presentation, the ability and indeed ease to format and generate multimeric/multispecific Affimers (potential for combination therapies) along with ease of production, are key attributes (there are more), which sets Affimers apart from antibodies and many antibody alternatives and thus Affimers should indeed be of interest. Avacta's agreement with Moderna is one such example of biopharmas early interest and Avacta have revealed they are in further discussions with other parties, so the next 12-24 months could be very interesting with regard to therapeutics. In other words, certain pre-clinical in-house development milestones might provide for a relatively early value inflection point.

I am now more convinced than ever regarding the alignment of the attributes and indeed the advantages Affimers offer in diagnostics and affinity separation. Strictly in my opinion only, it appears to me that it's a case of when and not if we see something tangible emerge in terms of deals in these areas. In this context I am thinking relatively near term, but as alluded to by Avacta, these deals will perhaps not have the same level of up-fronts associated to therapeutics, but they will provide long terms value propositions, not to mention important technology validation.

The Presentation also covered the collaboration with Dr Ajjan to modulate blood clotting, and those who downloaded and listened to the Interim Results Analysts Presentation might have noted that in this collaboration there are two families of Affimers, one which reduce clotting and another that promotes clotting. So, another deal that was announced yesterday also caught my attention and perhaps provides for at least some background -


Ergomed inks Haemostatix takeover to gain bleeding control assets
by Nick Paul Taylor | May 5, 2016

With Ergomed putting the combined estimated market for PeproStat and Haemostatix’s earlier-stage product at around £200 million or more, the deal to take control of the assets is relatively small. Ergomed is set to hand over £8 million upfront, with a further £20 million to follow if the programs hit certain milestones.

[the drewster] 06/5/2016 10:24

"Exciting" is the feedback I had - don't shoot the messenger.

[mrangry2] 05/5/2016 16:35

I can't stay for long unfortunately, but I've asked and it's all being filmed.

[contact2fsnetcouk] 05/5/2016 15:53

Thank you for your reply Mr A - you mentioned that in post 747 in which case the contributors to this site will expect a detailed analysis of the night's proceedings :-). Thank you

Mr brother actually works opposite Avacta on the Thorpe Arch, Wetherby site. I'll have to ask him if there is any heightened activity.

[mrangry2] 05/5/2016 13:59

contact2fsnetwork - Shame it's not in Yorkshire for you. For me, it's up a few flights of stairs as I actually work in the same building! Journey time - 2 minutes.

[the drewster] 05/5/2016 11:12

I'm not, but I know a man who is!

[contact2fsnetcouk] 05/5/2016 10:33

Investor evening tonight. Hope it revives the share price Anyone going ? Shame it's not in Yorkshire

[wan] 01/5/2016 06:33

A video of the analysts presentation is now also available and provides more detail by way of commentary. And as I previously indicated (hoped), Affimers potential in diagnostics is starting to look very encouraging and indeed Affimers appear to be yielding diagnostic (and purification) interest where there are large and exciting and relatively near tern opportunities -

[wan] 26/4/2016 11:51

Poacher...Good morning! What happened to your dismal predictions regarding the share consolidation?

What difference do you think a multi-million £ upfront payment or milestone payment would make? Anyway, this investment is still about value building and important progress has been achieved. True we need a few value catalysts, but there are in fact multiple potential catalysts, some of which are registering louder on the radar!

[poacher45] 26/4/2016 09:57

Another half year goes by. What have they achieved? Overheads are still completely out of control. Just to add to this they are taking on more and more staff and every couple of years we have another rights issue. Will this firm ever make a profit I doubt it ever will. Turnover at animal health has stalled. It will soon be time they invented something else that will be the next big thing only for it to gradually fail over the next five years.

[wan] 26/4/2016 08:26

Latest Hardman Research -

[wan] 26/4/2016 07:55

Analysts Interim Results Presentation -

[the drewster] 25/4/2016 08:53

Deals inside the next 12 months, on therapeutics, would be astounding, and I suspect transformational.

[wan] 25/4/2016 08:07

More and indeed interesting therapeutic detail from Avacta, along with, in my opinion, a more focused commercial strategy, which should enable its first deal during the coming year, which in turn will provide important insights.

A solid half year report, which provides a realistic and optimistic outlook -

[wan] 19/4/2016 07:58

Given that Avacta has stated that they are engaged with and negotiating a significant number of commercial partnerships with a wide range of customers including large pharma and biotechs (including several of the top ten pharmaceutical companies), a number of diagnostics providers, several large bioprocessing and chromatography companies, and several EU, US and Asian academic and research institutes, today's news along with the impending patent grant that I highlighted recently, will no doubt at least further assist those on-going discussions.