Headline results don’t always portray an accurate picture of a business’ underlying health, especially for an IRP rich biopharma & diagnostics firm like Avacta.
Today it posted modest H1 sales of £2.3m (+28% YoY), but indicated that its buoyant pipeline of potentially break-through in-house & 3rd party licensed (eg LG Chem checkpoint inhibitors) therapeutics have never been better.
Reflecting the quality of its 2 patented drug discovery platforms - Affimer & pre|CISION – which have over the past 18 months been launched on to the global stage.
Signing numerous deals with industry heavy-weights (eg POINT Biopharma, Daewoong Pharmaceuticals, Biokit for Scientific Research , Bruker, etc), alongside beginning Phase 1 clinical trials of its own targeted chemotherapy treatment Prodoxorubicin.
All told providing Avacta with a host of exciting therapeutic ‘shots on goal’ via its fully funded (£37m Jun’21) commercialisation strategy.
So what about its best-in-class Rapid Lateral Flow Tests (RLFTs)?
Well unfortunately whilst encouraging local innovation, it appears the UK Government has not yet fully followed through in awarding substantial orders with local manufacturers.
Hence Avacta is presently focusing its energies on selling the RLFTs to corporates, distributors & overseas partners for both professional and home/consumer use with regulatory approvals being sought in Europe & AsiaPac.
Sure near term volumes may be lower than originally hoped, yet equally the worldwide opportunity is still material. In fact, the market was worth an est $5.3b (37% AsiaPac) LY, & is set to expand at 6.7% CAGR between 2021-27.
CEO Alastair Smith, adding: “H1’21 has [seen considerable] progress and [been] transformative for both the Diagnostics & Therapeutics divisions.
Significant value inflection points lie ahead with the potential to transform cancer therapy with our next generation pre|CISION chemotherapies & Affimer immunotherapies. [Alongside delivering] significant profitable revenues from [our] leading RLFTs and in-vitro diagnostics”.
Watch this space.