Avacta has announced that several of the Affimer reagents recently generated for development of a point-of-care COVID-19 antigen saliva test, have now also been shown to block the interaction between the virus’ spike protein and ACE-2.
A receptor on human cells that is key to the virus infection pathway. This is a quite exceptional development against a rapidly moving background, offering significant new and unique potential for a therapy that could help prevent infection and limit the progression of the disease, thereby providing immediate benefit to patients.
Given the global urgency, it is quite possible that this will quickly attract a large and well-resourced Big Pharma partner, with a view to participating in the development of a neutralising Affimer therapy that potentially could be created and approved more rapidly than a vaccine.
Avacta’s Board considers the likelihood of success of such a therapy to be high. Understanding also that Avacta retains all rights to its Affimer reagents, investors stand to significantly benefit from any such outcome.
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