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Alastair Smith
About Alastair Smith
Following a career in academia becoming Professor of Molecular Biophysics at Leeds University, I established Avacta in 2006 to identify opportunities for innovative products in life sciences, in particular focusing on biopharmaceutical characterisation and diagnostics.
I have been Chief Executive of Avacta since its inception and have been responsible for the management and strategic development of the company, led the IPO in 2006 and the fund raising and M&A activities of the Group since then.
In 2012 Avacta acquired the Affimer IP from Leeds University, the UK Medical Research Council and others. This transformational acquisition has led to Avacta focusing its investment on developing Affimers for therapeutics, and for the research and diagnostic markets.
Avacta has now established a team of approximately 30 scientists in laboratories in Cambridge UK developing Affimer immuno-oncology therapies with a focus on multi-specific checkpoint inhibitors, novel drug conjugates and targeted agonists. Avacta aims to be in the clinic with its lead programme, a PD-L1/LAG-3 bispecific in 2020 followed by a strong pre-clinical pipeline including a novel, immune-oncology active drug conjugate platform.
At the Group’s site in Wetherby UK around 40 R&D and support staff are developing and commercialising Affimer reagents through licensing for research and diagnostic applications with an emphasis on immunoassays, affinity separation and rapid diagnostics.
Avacta Announces AffyXell Expands Its Strategic Partnership With GenScript ProBio
May 17 2022
Avacta Group plc (AIM: AVCT), a clinical stage oncology drug company developing innovative cancer therapies […]
AffyXell Partners with Biocytogen and the Korea Non-clinical Technology Support Center
April 11 2022
Avacta Group plc (AIM: AVCT), a clinical stage oncology drug company and developer of powerful […]
Avacta Appoints Dr Christina Coughlin as Non-Executive Director
March 21 2022
Avacta Group plc (AIM: AVCT), a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing innovative cancer therapies and […]
Avacta Selects Second pre|CISION™ Pro-drug Candidate for Development
January 18 2022
Avacta Group plc (AIM: AVCT), a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing innovative cancer therapies and […]
Avacta Provides Update on AffiDX ® SARS-CoV-2 Antigen Lateral Flow Test and Detection of the Omicron Variant
January 10 2022
Avacta Group plc (AIM: AVCT), a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing innovative cancer therapies and […]
Avacta Announces AffiDX ® SARS-CoV-2 Antigen Lateral Flow Test Receives CE Mark for Consumer Self-Testing
December 22 2021
Avacta Group plc (AIM: AVCT), a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing innovative cancer therapies and […]
Avacta Announces AffiDx SARS-CoV-2 Antigen Lateral Flow Test Detects the Omicron Variant
December 15 2021
Avacta Group plc (AIM: AVCT), a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing innovative cancer therapies and powerful […]
Avacta Announces FDA Approval of its Investigational New Drug (IND) Application for AVA6000
November 29 2021
Avacta Group plc (AIM: AVCT), a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing innovative cancer therapies and […]
Avacta Group Achievement of Pre-clinical Development Milestone in LG Chem Life Sciences Partnership
September 29 2021
Avacta Group plc (AIM: AVCT), a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing innovative cancer therapies and […]