Avacta Group Plc (LON:AVCT) said it has established a three-strong commercial team in the US, led by Dr Matthew Vincent, who has been appointed vice president, therapeutics business development.
The company said the move would allow it to exploit the rapidly growing interest its Affimer alternative to antibodies, and to “further grow the pipeline of evaluations and collaborations”.
WATCH: Avacta building on 'significant' commercial momentum for Affimer technology
"The US is a very important and large market for us and in order to exploit the scale of the opportunity in North America effectively, we have decided to establish a presence on both the east and west coasts,” said Avacta chief executive, Dr Alastair Smith.
“This expansion is a strong signal of our confidence in the technology and the growing interest from pharma, biotech and diagnostics that is being driven by the new data and applications that is rapidly emerging from our own and collaborators' laboratories.
“This team's task is to build the long term relationships that ultimately will lead to licensing deals and royalty based revenue from research and diagnostic applications and to secure Affimer therapeutic development partnerships.”
READ: Avacta Group “significant technical and commercial” headway
Business development executives will be based in San Diego and Philadelphia.
Vincent, who has 25 years’ of senior executive experience, will have his office in Boston.
He joins Avacta from Arisaph Pharmaceuticals where he led corporate development and therapeutic innovation strategy delivering around US$100mln in licence revenues in the last three years.
“I am delighted that we have been able to bring someone with Matt Vincent's extensive experience and network into the group to specifically address the therapeutics business development opportunity and to capitalise on our continued technical delivery of the Affimer technology as a therapeutic platform," said CEO Smith.