OREANDA-NEWS. Avacta Group plc (AIM: AVCT), the developer of Affimer® biotherapeutics and research reagents, is pleased to announce that it has appointed three leading immunologists, Professors Terence Rabbitts, Paul Moss and Adrian Hayday, to form its Scientific Advisory Board which is to be chaired by Non-Executive Director Dr Mike Owen.

Dr Owen was Senior Vice President and Global Head of Research of the Biopharmaceuticals R&D Unit at GlaxoSmithKline where he was responsible for initiating and rapidly growing GSK's robust pre-clinical and clinical therapeutic antibody pipeline during the last decade through in-house development and through acquisitions such as Domantis. He was appointed as Non-Executive Director of Avacta in September 2015 to bring extensive clinical trial, scientific and commercial experience of therapeutic development and to establish and chair a Scientific Advisory Board to support the development of Affimers as a therapeutic platform technology.

The Company has today appointed three pre-eminent biologists to form the Scientific Advisory Board: Professor Terrence Rabbitts of the University of Oxford and John Radcliffe Hospital, Professor Adrian Hayday of the Crick Institute King's College and Guy's Hospital, and Professor Paul Moss, Director of the School of Cancer Sciences at Birmingham University and Honorary Consultant at the University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust.

Collectively, this group of internationally recognised scientists has made numerous pivotal discoveries in immunology, ranging from fundamental studies on the genes and proteins that regulate the adaptive immune system to the development of treatments for cancers, and has published several hundred scientific papers on these subjects. They sit on a number of Scientific Advisory Boards for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, public and private funding bodies and charities. They bring a very high level of scientific knowledge and experience in translational science and clinical medicine and will help guide the Company's therapeutic development strategy. They will also advise on, and review, the pre-clinical and clinical programmes that will establish Affimer proteins as a next generation biotherapeutic technology.

Detailed biographies of the Scientific Advisory Board are provided below and available at www.avacta.com/team.

Dr Alastair Smith, Chief Executive Officer of Avacta, said:

"I am delighted to welcome Terry, Paul and Adrian on to the Scientific Advisory Board of the Company. Their individual track records speak for themselves and their appointment is the final part of our strategy to establish a leading management team, Board and advisory group whose expertise will allow us to deliver the full potential of the Affimer technology for shareholders following the placing in 2015.

The Company already has a wealth of experience and is making strong progress in the use of Affimer reagents as life science research tools, especially following the recent appointment of Dr Philippe Cotrel as Chief Commercial Officer. Today's appointments add a world class resource to the Company that will help us establish and critically review our therapeutic strategy. Together they bring the highest level of knowledge and experience and I look forward to working with them as we accelerate the development of our therapeutic programmes."

Commenting on the appointments, Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board, Dr Mike Owen said:

"Terry, Adrian and Paul are world class scientists who collectively have long, established track records in researching fundamental mechanisms in health and disease and in translating these basic scientific discoveries into clinical benefit. They will be invaluable in helping Avacta to leverage the advantages of the Affimer technology platform to generate transformational medicines."

Avacta Group plc (www.avacta.com)

Avacta's principal focus is on its proprietary Affimer® technology which is a novel engineered alternative to antibodies that has wide application in Life Sciences for diagnostics, therapeutics and general research and development.

Antibodies dominate markets worth in excess of $50bn despite their shortcomings. Affimer technology has been designed to address many of these negative performance issues, principally; the time taken to generate new antibodies, the reliance on an animal's immune response, poor specificity in many cases, and batch to batch variability. Affimer technology is based on a small protein that can be quickly generated to bind with high specificity and affinity to a wide range of protein targets.

Avacta has a pre-clinical biotech development programme with an in-house focus on oncology and bleeding disorders as well as several partnered development programmes. Avacta is commercialising non-therapeutic Affimer reagents through custom Affimer services to provide bespoke solutions to research and diagnostics customers and via a small on-line catalogue of Affimer products.

Avacta Life Sciences Scientific Advisory Board

Chairman, Dr Mike Owen (FMedSci)

Dr Owen was Senior Vice President and global Head of Research of the Biopharmaceuticals R&D Unit at GlaxoSmithKline and was responsible for initiating and rapidly growing GSK's robust pre-clinical and clinical therapeutic antibody pipeline during the last decade through in-house development as well as through acquisitions such as Domantis. He left GSK in 2010 to establish Kymab which is developing biotherapeutics using its novel transgenic mouse platform.

Dr Owen is an immunologist by training who had a highly successful scientific career at Imperial Cancer Research during which he was elected a member of the European Molecular Biology Organisation and a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and has over 150 scientific publications.

Dr Owen brings extensive clinical trial, scientific and commercial experience to the Company in support of the development and commercialisation of Affimers as a therapeutic platform technology.  Dr Owen is also an independent Board member at Zealand Pharma and Non-Executive Director of Ossianix Inc. and Blink Therapeutics. He sits on the Scientific Advisory Board of Kymab and also advises the private equity CRT Pioneer Fund and HS Life Sciences.

Professor Terence H Rabbitts (FMedSci, FRS)

Professor Rabbitts is a molecular biologist, working at the University of Oxford John Radcliffe Hospital, whose examination of the organisation and rearrangement of human genes over the past four decades has helped to shape our understanding of immunity and cancer. Professor Rabbitts was responsible for determining the genetic basis of human antibody diversity, which enables the immune system to fight countless pathogens, and revealed genetic translocations that cause some cancers.

He has considerable experience in guiding the commercialisation of cutting edge biotechnology having been the Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Boards of Cambridge Antibody Technology and Quadrant Healthcare until their respective IPOs, a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of Domantis until its acquisition by GSK, Chair of the Medical Advisory Board of Oakes Lyman and he is currently a member of the Scientific Advisory Boards of Oryzon Genomics and of DiThera.

Professor Rabbitts worked in Cambridge from 1973-2006 in the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology where he was joint Head of the Division of Protein and Nucleic Acid Chemistry together with the Nobel Laureate Cesar Milstein. He was the Director of the Leeds Institute of Molecular Medicine from 2007 to 2010 and is now Professor of Molecular Biology at the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine. He has been awarded the Colworth Medal (1981), the CIBA Prize (1993) and the Clotten Foundation Prize (2015) and was elected as a Member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) (1981), a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) (1987) and a Founder Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci) (1998).

Professor Paul Moss (MRCP, FRCPath)

Professor Paul Moss is the former Head of the School of Cancer Sciences at the University of Birmingham and is now Director of Research at the Medical School. His research is centred around the application of translational immunological research in the study of human malignancies. Professor Moss's current research team comprises clinical and non-clinical research scientists working on a wide range of projects. His group is investigating several areas of cancer immunology related to leukaemia and solid tumours. He is also working to optimise immune function after stem cell transplantation and has an international profile in the immune control of chronic viral infections such as cytomegalovirus. Collectively, his research works to facilitate the design and introduction of improved immunotherapy strategies targeted at cancer.

Professor Moss is also Chairman of the Infection and Immunity Board at the Medical Research Council.  In this role he oversees funding in basic, clinical and translational research applied to infectious human disease and to disorders of the human immune system. He also serves as a member of the Strategy Board at the MRC. Professor Moss is an Honorary Consultant at the University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust and he is the Clinical Service Lead for chronic lymphocytic leukaemia. Professor Moss is also a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of Cell Medica Ltd and has previously served as the Chair of the Cancer Research UK (CRUK) Clinical and Translational Research Committee (2008-2012).

Professor Adrian Hayday (FMedSci)

Professor Hayday is the Kay Glendinning Professor of Immunobiology at the Francis Crick Institute, King's College London, co-Leader of the Clinical Academic Grouping in Genetics, Rheumatology, Immunology, Infection, and Dermatology at Guy's Hospital, and a Senior Group Leader at the London Research Institute of Cancer Research UK.

He obtained his PhD in tumour virology from Imperial College London and then moved to work at MIT with Susumu Tonegawa, before his appointment to the Yale University faculty, where he rose to become a full professor in 1997 receiving the William Clyde DeVane Medal, Yale's highest honour for scholarship and teaching. In 1998, he returned to Guy's Hospital and King's College in London.

Adrian's research interests include unconventional T cells, the regulation of tissue inflammation and the control of carcinogenesis. He was co-discoverer of the gamma-delta T cell antigen receptor, a discovery that generated widespread interest in immune cell function within tissues, and tumour immune surveillance. Together with long-standing collaborators, Prof. Hayday has succeeded in identifying critical roles for gamma-delta cells in primary immunoprotection against solid tumours, and in immunoregulation, particularly within tissues. He is internationally renowned for his work in immunology and has published over 200 papers.

He was elected a fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2002, and won the King's College Award for Business in 2009. He has been a member of numerous advisory Boards including the Scientific Advisory Board of Medimmune, and is currently a member of the Scientific Advisory Boards of HS Lifesciences and ImmunoQure. He also advises a number of bodies, including the Wellcome Trust and CRUK where he is Chair of the Science Committee, responsible for the oversight of basic and translational cancer research programmes.