16 February 2024
Avacta Group plc
("Avacta" or the "Group" or the "Company")
Share Incentive Plan/Issue of Equity
Avacta Group plc (AIM: AVCT), a life sciences company developing innovative, targeted oncology drugs and powerful diagnostics, today announces that as part of its HMRC Approved Share Incentive Plan ("SIP") Award Scheme, ordinary shares of 10p each in the Company ("Ordinary Shares") up to a value of £3,000 per employee will be issued at the prevailing middle market price at the close of business on 14 February 2024 to all eligible employees. These shares awarded will form part of the employee's remuneration package.
Accordingly, an additional 9,515 Ordinary Shares have been issued as part of the SIP Award Scheme to eligible employees.
Application has been made for the Ordinary Shares to be admitted to trading on AIM and dealings are expected to commence on 22 February 2024 ("Admission"). The Ordinary Shares will rank pari passu with the existing Ordinary Shares of the Company.
Following Admission, the Company's enlarged issued share capital will be 288,215,722. This figure may be used by shareholders in the Company as the denominator for the calculations by which they will determine if they are required to notify their interest in, or a change in their interest in, the share capital of the Company under the FCA's Disclosure Guidance and Transparency Rules.
ENDS
For further information from Avacta Group plc, please contact:
| Avacta Group plc Alastair Smith, Chief Executive Officer Tony Gardiner, Chief Financial Officer Michael Vinegrad, Group Communications Director
| Tel: +44 (0) 1904 21 7070 |
| Stifel Nicolaus Europe Limited (Nomad and Broker) Nicholas Moore / Nick Adams / Samira Essebiyea / Nick Harland
| Tel: +44 (0) 207 710 7600 |
| Peel Hunt (Joint Broker) James Steel / Sohail Akbar / Patrick Birkholm
| Tel: +44 (0) 207 418 8900 |
| ICR Consilium (Media and IR) Mary-Jane Elliott / Jessica Hodgson / Sukaina Virji |
About Avacta Group plc - https://www.avacta.com
Avacta Group plc is a life sciences company working to improve people's health and well-being through innovative oncology drugs and powerful diagnostics. Operating through two divisions, Diagnostics and Therapeutics, the Group's mission is to provide professionals and consumers with solutions that improve healthcare, fitness and well-being.
Avacta's Therapeutics Division, a clinical stage oncology drug innovator, is building a wholly owned pipeline of novel Affimer® immunotherapies and pre|CISION™ tumour targeted chemotherapies. This approach is designed to address the lack of a durable response to current cancer immunotherapies experienced by most patients and reduce the severe systemic toxicities caused by chemotherapies. There are five programmes in the pipeline as well as several global research collaborations and licensing partnerships. Avacta's lead programme, AVA6000, is a preCISION™ tumour-targeted form of the established chemotherapy doxorubicin. AVA6000 is in Phase I clinical trials in patients with locally advanced or metastatic selected solid tumours.
The Affimer® platform is an alternative to antibodies that has been designed to address many of the drawbacks of antibodies which, despite their shortcomings, currently dominate the immuno-diagnostics and immuno-therapeutics markets.
The pre|CISION™ tumour targeting platform can be used to modify a chemotherapy in order to selectively release the active drug in tumour tissue thereby reducing the systemic exposure that causes damage to healthy tissues. pre|CISION™ modified chemotherapies are designed to reduce the side effects and improve the overall safety and therapeutic potential of these powerful anti-cancer treatments.
Avacta's Diagnostics Division develops and supplies a broad range of in-vitro diagnostic (IVD) solutions. The Division is growing rapidly through an M&A strategy to deliver a global scale IVD business providing market leading solutions for healthcare professionals and consumers to inform treatment and monitor health and well-being. In October 2022, Avacta acquired Launch Diagnostics which serves the hospital pathology laboratory market in the UK and Europe. In May 2023, Avacta acquired Coris Bioconcept a Belgium based lateral flow test developer and manufacturer adding a broad range of marketed professional-use rapid tests into the Diagnostics Division. Avacta Diagnostic's research and development centre in Wetherby, UK uses its proprietary Affimer® platform to differentiate immunodiagnostic products to provide marketing leading performance.
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