Avacta Group plc (AIM: AVCT), the developer of Affimer® biotherapeutics and research reagents, is pleased to announce that the Fundraising has been approved with all resolutions duly passed by shareholders at the General Meeting held today, save for resolution 3, the general authority to allot shares for cash.
Admission
Applications have been made to the London Stock Exchange for admission of the First Placing Shares, the General Shares and the Subscription Shares to trading on AIM. It is expected that admission will become effective and trading will commence in the 16,196,663 First Placing Shares at 8.00 a.m. on 5 November 2019 and the 43,380,350 Second Placing Shares and the 200,000 Subscription Shares at 8.00 a.m. on 6 November 2019.
Following Second Admission, the Company will have 175,935,136 ordinary shares of 10 pence each in issue and shareholders may use this figure as the denominator for the calculations by which they will determine if they are required to notify their interest in, or a change to their interest in the Company, under the FCA's Disclosure Guidance and Transparency Rules.
Board Changes
The Company announces that Sam Williams is stepping down from his role as a non-executive Director of the Company with immediate effect. The Chairman and Board would like to thank Sam for his contribution and look forward to continuing to work with Sam in his role at IP Group as a strongly supportive investor in Avacta.
Directors' Interests
The participating Directors' interests following completion of the Placing and Subscription at 15p are as follows:
Director
Existing beneficial interest in Ordinary Shares
Shares subscribed for
Interest in Enlarged Share Capital
% of Enlarged Share Capital
Alastair Smith*
646,309
33,334
679,643
0.39%
Eliot Forster
120,000
33,333
153,333
0.09%
Trevor Nicholls
75,000
33,333
108,333
0.06%
*In addition, Alastair Smith has a joint interest in 1,640,000 Ordinary Shares. Such Ordinary Shares are jointly held by Mr Smith individually and Avacta Group Trustee Limited in its capacity as trustee of The Avacta Employees' Share Trust. The precise nature of the joint interest is described within Joint Share Ownership Agreements between Alastair Smith (dated 9 January 2012 and 15 February 2016), as the case may be, and Avacta Group Trustee Limited and Avacta Group Plc in both cases.
Other than where defined, capitalised terms used in this announcement have the meanings given to them in the announcement made on 18 October 2019.
- Ends -
For further information from Avacta Group plc, please contact:
Avacta is developing novel cancer immunotherapies combining its two proprietary platforms - Affimer®biotherapeutics and tumour targeted chemotherapy. With this approach, the Company aims to address the lack of a durable response to current immunotherapies experienced by most patients. The Company's therapeutics development activities are based in Cambridge, UK.
The Company benefits from near-term revenues generated from Affimer® reagents for diagnostics, bioprocessing and research, through a separate business unit based in Wetherby, UK.
The Affimer® platform is an alternative to antibodies derived from a small human protein. Despite their shortcomings, antibodies currently dominate markets worth in excess of $100bn. Affimer® technology has been designed to address many of these negative performance issues, principally: the time taken, and the reliance on an animal's immune response, to generate new antibodies; poor specificity in many cases; large size and cost.
Avacta's proprietary targeted chemotherapy platform, releases active drug only in the tumour, thereby limiting systemic exposure and improving the overall safety and therapeutic potential of these powerful anti-cancer treatments.
By combining these two platforms the Company is building a wholly owned pipeline of novel cancer therapies with the aim of creating effective treatments for all cancer patients including those who do not respond to existing immunotherapies. Avacta expects to take its first drug, a targeted form of the standard-of-care Doxorubicin, into the clinic in the middle of 2020.
Avacta has established drug development partnerships with pharma and biotech, including with Moderna Therapeutics Inc., and a deal with LG Chem worth up to $310m, and actively seeks to license its proprietary platforms in a range of therapeutic areas.
Avacta reagents business unit works with partners world-wide to develop Affimers® for evaluation by those third parties with the objective of establishing royalty bearing license deals with a particular focus on the diagnostics sector. The Company is also developing a small in-house pipeline of Affimer®-based diagnostic assays for licensing.
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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
2138009U3EG31OPMGH36
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 the Financial instrument, type of instrument
Ordinary Shares of 10p each
Identification code
GB00BYYW9G87
b)
Nature of the transaction
Purchase of Ordinary Shares
c)
Price(s) and volume(s)
Purchase Price(s)
Volume(s)
15.0 pence
33,334
d)
Aggregated information:
Aggregated volume
Price
33,334
£5,000.10
e)
Date of the transaction
6 November 2019
f)
Place of the transaction
London Stock Exchange, AIM
1.
Details of the person discharging managerial responsibilities / person closely associated
a)
Name
Eliot Forster
2.
Reason for the Notification
a)
Position/status
Chairman
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
2138009U3EG31OPMGH36
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 the Financial instrument, type of instrument
Ordinary Shares of 10p each
Identification code
GB00BYYW9G87
b)
Nature of the transaction
Purchase of Ordinary Shares
c)
Price(s) and volume(s)
Purchase Price(s)
Volume(s)
15.0 pence
33,333
d)
Aggregated information:
Aggregated volume
Price
33,333
£4,999.95
e)
Date of the transaction
6 November 2019
f)
Place of the transaction
London Stock Exchange
1.
Details of the person discharging managerial responsibilities / person closely associated
a)
Name
Trevor Nicholls
2.
Reason for the Notification
a)
Position/status
Non-executive Director
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
2138009U3EG31OPMGH36
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 the Financial instrument, type of instrument
Ordinary Shares of 10p each
Identification code
GB00BYYW9G87
b)
Nature of the transaction
Purchase of Ordinary Shares
c)
Price(s) and volume(s)
Purchase Price(s)
Volume(s)
15.0 pence
33,333
d)
Aggregated information:
Aggregated volume
Price
33,333
£4,999.95
e)
Date of the transaction
6 November 2019
f)
Place of the transaction
London Stock Exchange
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