Avacta Group (LON: AVCT) shares are up almost 4% Wednesday after a pre-clinical development milestone was achieved in the therapeutics development partnership with LG Chem Life Sciences.
LG Chem has completed specific pre-clinical in-vivo models in the PD-L1/XT programme, leading to selecting a pre-clinical candidate and triggering an undisclosed milestone payment.
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“I am delighted with the progress in our important strategic partnership with LG Chem. LG Chem is a world-class drug development partner with excellent biologics manufacturing and clinical development capabilities and a pioneering vision to develop innovative drugs,” commented Dr Alastair Smith, CEO of Avacta Group.
Avacta and LG Chem, the life sciences division of the South Korean LG Group, have a multi-target therapeutics development agreement to develop Affimer therapeutics in several disease areas.Â
The agreement means LG Chem has the rights to develop and commercialise, on a global basis, Avacta's Affimer PD-L1 inhibitor with Affimer XT serum half-life extension.
LG Chem also has the rights to develop and commercialise other Affimer and non-Affimer biotherapeutics combined with Affimer XT half-life extension for various indications, with Avacta potentially earning up to $55m in milestone payments for each of the new products.Â
In addition, Avacta will earn royalties on all future Affimer XT product sales by LG Chem.
“I am particularly pleased that we have achieved this significant milestone with a novel Affimer bispecific product, which highlights the tremendous promise of the Affimer platform,” added Smith.
Avacta's share price is currently up 3.85% at 117.4p. The company's shares have fallen over 49% in the last six months after reaching an intraday high of 291.8p in April. Even after Avacta began shipping its AffiDX SARS-CoV-2 antigen lateral flow test, its shares closed the day down 0.84%.
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