Avacta Group PLC Director/PDMR Shareholding (5552O)

TIDMAVCT

RNS Number : 5552O

Avacta Group PLC

21 August 2017

21 August 2017

Avacta Group plc

("Avacta", the "Group" or the "Company")

Director/PDMR Shareholding

Avacta Group plc (AIM: AVCT), the developer of Affimer(R) biotherapeutics and research reagents, announces that its Chief Executive Officer, Dr Alastair Smith has today purchased 33,225 ordinary shares of 10p each ("Ordinary Shares") at a price of 74.5p per share.

Following this transaction, Dr Smith's total beneficial interest in the Group is 570,509 Ordinary Shares, representing approximately 0.8% of Avacta's issued share capital. In addition, Alastair Smith has a joint interest in 1,640,000 shares in the share capital of the Company; such shares are jointly held by certain Directors individually and Avacta Group Trustee Limited in its capacity as trustee of The Avacta Employees' Share Trust.

Enquiries:

 
 Avacta Group plc                          Tel: +44 (0) 
  Alastair Smith, Chief Executive           844 414 0452 
  Officer                                   www.avacta.com 
  Tony Gardiner, Chief Financial 
  Officer 
 finnCap Ltd                               Tel: +44 (0) 
  Geoff Nash / Giles Rolls - Nominated      207 220 0500 
  Adviser                                   www.finncap.com 
  Tim Redfern / Alice Lane - Corporate 
  Broking 
                                            Tel: +44 (0) 
  WG Partners                               203 705 9318 
  David Wilson                              Tel: +44 (0) 
  Nigel Barnes                              203 705 9217 
  Claes Spang                               www.wgpartners.co.uk 
 Media Enquiries                           Tel: +44 (0) 
  FTI Consulting                            203 727 1000 
  Simon Conway / Natalie Garland-Collins    [e-mail] 
 

Notes to Editors

Avacta Group plc (www.avacta.com)

Avacta's principal focus is on its proprietary Affimer(R) technology which is a novel engineered alternative to antibodies that has wide application in Life Sciences for diagnostics, therapeutics and general research and development.

Antibodies dominate markets worth in excess of $50bn despite their shortcomings. Affimer technology has been designed to address many of these negative performance issues, principally; the time taken to generate new antibodies, the reliance on an animal's immune response, poor specificity in many cases, and batch to batch variability. Affimer technology is based on a small protein that can be quickly generated to bind with high specificity and affinity to a wide range of protein targets.

Avacta has a pre-clinical biotech development programme with an in-house focus on immuno-oncology and bleeding disorders as well as partnered development programmes. Avacta is commercialising non-therapeutic Affimer reagents through licensing to developers of life sciences research tools and diagnostics.

The information communicated in this announcement is inside information for the purposes of Article 7 of Regulation 596/2014.

Notification and public disclosure of transactions by persons discharging managerial responsibilities and persons closely associated with them

 
 1.   Details of the person discharging managerial 
       responsibilities / person closely associated 
---  --------------------------------------------------------------- 
 a)   Name                             Alastair Smith 
---  -------------------------------  ------------------------------ 
 2.   Reason for the Notification 
---  --------------------------------------------------------------- 
 a)   Position/status                  Chief Executive Officer 
---  -------------------------------  ------------------------------ 
 b)   Initial notification/Amendment    Initial notification 
---  -------------------------------  ------------------------------ 
 3.   Details of the issuer, emission allowance 
       market participant, auction platform, auctioneer 
       or auction monitor 
---  --------------------------------------------------------------- 
 a)   Name                             Avacta Group Plc 
---  -------------------------------  ------------------------------ 
 b)   LEI                              n/a 
---  -------------------------------  ------------------------------ 
 4.   Details of the transaction(s): section to 
       be repeated for (i) each type of instrument; 
       (ii) each type of transaction; (iii) each 
       date; and (iv) each place where transactions 
       have been conducted 
---  --------------------------------------------------------------- 
 a)   Description of                     Ordinary shares 
       the Financial                       of 10p 
       instrument, type 
       of instrument 
--- 
      Identification                   GB00BYYW9G87 
       code 
---  -------------------------------  ------------------------------ 
 b)   Nature of the                      Purchase of ordinary shares 
       transaction 
---  -------------------------------  ------------------------------ 
 c)   Price(s) and                      Price(s)      Volume(s) 
       volume(s)                        ------------  ---------- 
                                         74.5 pence    33,225 
                                        ------------  ---------- 
---  -------------------------------  ------------------------------ 
 d)   Aggregated information: 
        *    Aggregated volume           See above 
 
 
        *    Price 
---  -------------------------------  ------------------------------ 
 e)   Date of the transaction          21 August 2017 
---  -------------------------------  ------------------------------ 
 f)   Place of the                     London Stock Exchange, AIM 
       transaction                      Market (XLON) 
---  -------------------------------  ------------------------------ 
 

This information is provided by RNS

The company news service from the London Stock Exchange

END

DSHOKDDPKBKDCFB

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

August 21, 2017 07:00 ET (11:00 GMT)