Although the enormous potential of Avacta’s (AVCT ) Affimer platform has been a little over-shadowed by the great strides being made with its novel AVA6000 cancer busting treatment (ie preCISION) - ie presently undergoing Phase 1 clinical trials.

It nonetheless is making significant medical advancements too.

Saying today that an Affimer-engineered cell therapy within its AffyXell Therapeutics JV with Daewoong Pharmaceuticals (South Korean) had met a primary pre-clinical end-goal.
Resulting in a milestone equity payment being triggered - thus bumping up Avacta’s stake to 22% with the associated IP being transferred into the JV.

The BROAD concept here being that Affimer molecules are combined (in vitro) with a human’s own harvested stem cells - & then later infused back into the patient in order to ultimately suppress immune response. Say perhaps to neutralise / dampen any harmful reactions caused by inflammatory/auto-immune diseases, organ transplant rejections, viruses, etc.

An untapped market which could be worth up to $16bn by 2025.

Under the terms of the original agreement, AVCT's R&D costs are being are funded by AffyXell, whilst Avacta retains the rights to commercialise its proteins outside the field of cell therapies.

CEO Alastair Smith adding: “AffyXell is uniquely positioned to develop novel & powerful cell therapies through the combination of two world-class technologies. Avacta’s Affimer platform and Daewoong’s proprietary technology for generating ‘off-the-shelf’ allogeneic MSC therapies.

We are delighted that Affimer molecules have been successfully generated against the first target & that the intellectual property has been transferred to AffyXell, triggering this important milestone.”

As stressed before, today's marvelous news is another clear indication that there are a host of potential major value catalysts coming down the track for Avacta over the next few years. Alongside providing another high-profile example that the science behind the Affimer platform is flexible, clinically robust & importantly works.

Watch this space