Avacta Shares Fell 4.41% on Full-Year Results, But Later Recovered

The Avacta Group Plc (LON: AVCT) share price fell 4.41% after releasing its preliminary results for the year ended 31 December 2022. The company generated revenues worth £9.7 million, marking a significant improvement to the £2.9 million sales recorded in 2021.

The life sciences company also recorded a pretax loss of £15.1 million, excluding non-recurring and non-cash items, compared to 2021’s £21.7 million loss. However, the firm’s operating loss rose to £32.6 million from the £29.1 million loss recorded in 2021.

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However, investors were mainly interested in Avacta’s operational highlights, including the progress in advancing drugs formulated using its proprietary drug discovery and development platform, the pre|CISION™ platform. The company’s lead drug candidate is AVA6000,  a tumour drug. 

Avacta noted that the dosing of the first four cohorts of participants in the first-in-human clinical trials of AVA6000 had progressed without any hitches. The human trial is conducted following positive reviews of the safety and tolerability data generated before the phase 1 clinical trial. 

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) also granted Avacta’s AVA6000 drug candidate Orphan Drug Designation (ODD) to treat soft tissue sarcoma. The company is also developing its next pre|CISION™ known as AVA3996, a tumour-targeted proteasome inhibitor based on bortezomib. 

Avacta expects to file an  Investigational New Drug (IND) Application with the FDA from late 2023 to 2024. The company also updated its AffyXell Therapeutics, the joint venture with Daewoong Pharmaceutical. The JV has partnered with Biocytogen, a Chinese company specialising in developing new biological drugs.

The AffyXell JV has also collaborated with the Korea Non-Clinical Technology Solution Center (KNTSC). The company also expanded its strategic partnership with GenScript ProBio, a leading biopharmaceutical manufacturer.

Avacta also completed a funding round to advance its lead mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) therapy towards the clinic and to develop its extensive pre-clinical pipeline of cell therapies. The company also increased its stake in the AffyXell partnership to 19% after receiving a milestone equity payment of £3.60 million. 

Despite the initial decline in Avacta’s share price, the company’s shares had recouped most of their losses at writing. 

*This is not investment advice. 

Avacta share price. 

The Avacta share price had fallen 4.41% to trade at 124.75p, from Monday’s closing price of 130.50p.