The London-headquartered developer of peptide drug conjugates has sold Launch Diagnostics Holdings to a subsidiary of Spain-headquartered Palex Healthcare.
London-headquartered Avacta Therapeutics, a developer of peptide drug conjugates, has agreed to sell its diagnostic unit Launch Diagnostics Holdings to Duomed Belgium, a subsidiary of Spain-headquartered Palex Healthcare, for £12.9 million in cash.
The transaction is expected to close by the end of April this year and, the company says, aligns with its strategic shift towards becoming a pure-play biotechnology firm.
“The diversification into diagnostics over the past two years has been very disappointing. However, this disposal is a critical and necessary step forward in our corporate strategy to become a pure-play therapeutics company,” said non-executive chairman Shaun Chilton.
“This disposal, which followed an extensive auction process, realises cash to support our growing R&D investment program and also enables the management to focus on the development of our… platform,” he continued.
Positive pipeline
Announcing the disposal, the company also updated on its research and development pipeline.
Its lead program, AVA6000, has shown promise in clinical trials. It showed a significant reduction in the observed toxicities associated with conventional doxorubicin, the capacity to shrink tumours with multiple, durable responses observed in different disease settings with sensitivity to doxorubicin, and the profound concentration of the active payload (doxorubicin) in the tumour versus the plasma.
“Together, these findings in the clinic underscore the potential for the next assets in the pipeline to be highly differentiated and have potential for enhanced activity compared with traditional oncology therapeutics,” it said.
Shares in Avacta jumped almost 10% on the news.
The company also confirmed that it is still considering a dual listing on Nasdaq.
