Walker Morris advises Avacta on ground-breaking agreement for COVID-19 antigen test
2nd June 2020
Commercial Team advise Avacta on ‘Medusa19’ distribution agreement to accelerate return to work
Legal experts at Walker Morris advised life sciences company Avacta Group plc (AIM: AVCT), the developer of Affimer® biotherapeutics and reagents, as it entered into an exclusive distribution agreement with Medusa19 Limited for direct-to-consumer sales of a saliva-based rapid test for the COVID-19 antigen.
Wetherby based Avacta has partnered with Cytiva to develop the innovative new antigen test to indicate whether individuals are infected with COVID-19, providing results within minutes. Walker Morris advised the Group on its exclusive distribution agreement with Medusa19 for the supply of the COVID-19 rapid test globally, subject to the necessary regulatory approvals.
Avacta’s innovation is in response to the global demand for rapid antigen tests, which will be crucial in getting millions of healthy, non-contagious people back to work as countries around the world exit lockdown.
James Crayton, Partner at Walker Morris, commented:
“We have worked with Avacta for a number of years and they’re a client that is always working on extremely interesting developments but this is perhaps the most exciting single application of their skills and we’re pleased to have been able to accelerate this ground-breaking deal for them.
Given the speedy turnaround required, we are delighted that we could help this deal happen within the timescales that COVID-19 is necessitating. The rapid test developed by Avacta has potentially huge implications for wider society and could be of great importance for individuals and companies across all sectors, including airlines, hotels, restaurants and manufacturers – an efficient, user-friendly way of testing which will allow businesses to move forward more quickly in getting their teams back to work.”
Walker Morris is a full-service commercial law firm of which Avacta has been a client since 2004. The firm is focussed on providing partner-led, high-quality advice for a wide range of private and public sector clients nationally and internationally.
More information about Avacta & Medusa19 is available here.
