Avacta Group, a life sciences firm based in Wetherby, has signed a new commercial licensing deal with a US company which specialises in the discovery and production of enzymes for use in molecular biology.

With the licensing deal secured, the company’s Affimer biotherapeutics and reagents can be used by New England Biolabs (NEB) to commercialise a product for life science research and diagnostics assays.

Avacta Group and NEB have been working together to create Affimers to combine with NEB’s reagents.

The Group has found that certain NEB proprietary enzymes can be inhibited by specific Affirmers to provide modulation of their activity when reacting to temperature.

Unlike other enzyme inhibitors, Affimers can be modified to switch at the right temperature without negatively impacting the overall assay performance. NEB’s product testing is in the final stage, and under the deal agreed with Avacta the New England lab will commercialise the combined end product.

The agreement’s financial details are not being disclosed, however Avacta will collect a royalty on product sales, which could occur as soon as 2019.

Avacta Group’s CEO, Alastair Smith, said: “We are delighted that the collaboration with New England Biolabs, a highly respected, globally recognised leader in the life sciences reagents market, has resulted in this commercial agreement to incorporate the Affimer technology into one of their products.

“This is another important milestone for Avacta, because it further validates the Affimer technology and our licensing business model. We have built a pipeline of evaluations and collaborations, such as this one with New England Biolabs, to deliver numerous license agreements to commercialise Affimer-based products. Collectively, these royalty bearing licenses will underpin the future high margin revenue from Affimer reagents.

“We are looking forward to continuing our collaboration to generate more combined products for the research and molecular diagnostic markets.

“This is a very exciting time for the Group and we look forward to updating the market on continuing commercial progress for Affimer reagents and, importantly, on therapeutic licensing deals.”