Avacta Group announced that several of the Affimer reagents recently generated for development of a point-of-care COVID-19 antigen saliva test have now also been shown to block the interaction between the virus’ spike protein and ACE2, a receptor on human cells that is key to the virus infection pathway.
Avacta has already successfully generated a large number of Affimer reagents that bind to the SARS-COV-2 virus’ spike protein as part of its partnership with Cytiva (formerly GE Healthcare Life Sciences and now part of Danaher Corp). As previously announced, Avacta and Cytiva are working together to develop a rapid point-of-care COVID-19 antigen saliva test to be mass produced for large-scale population screening and for self-testing by consumers.
Avacta Group Plc (LON:AVCT) offers reagents and therapeutics based on Affimer technology for diagnostic and research applications in the United Kingdom. The company’s custom Affimer products are also used in drugs and biomarkers discovery in biotech research and development.