[June 14, 2016]

Abzena plc full year results: revenues up 74%, strong outlook within growing market

Abzena plc (AIM: ABZA, 'Abzena' or the 'Group'), a life sciences group providing services and technologies enabling the development and manufacture of biopharmaceutical products, has published its full year results for the year to 31 March 2016.

Corporate highlights

• Expansion of Abzena business through two US acquisitions receiving positive customer response with integration progressing well
  • Acquired PacificGMP for $7.0 million (£4.6 million) in September 2015 to provide GMP manufacturing capability within Abzena
  • Acquired The Chemistry Research Solution LLC for $15 million (£9 million) in December 2015 to expand antibody drug conjugate (ADC (News - Alert)) and chemistry services offering

• Raised £20m (net) by placing new Ordinary Shares with certain existing and new shareholders
• Entered into significant ThioBridge™ ADC technology licence deal with Halozyme Therapeutics (US) with potential to deliver $150 million of licence fees and milestone payments as well as royalties on sales of ThioBridge™ ADC products developed by Halozyme
• Three more ABZENA Inside products entered clinical development, bringing the total portfolio to eleven
  • TNT009 being developed by True North Therapeutics disclosed as one of the products
  • Gilead Sciences moved GS-5745 into a Phase III clinical study in gastric cancer, started enrolling patients in a Phase II/III study in ulcerative colitis and a Phase II study in Crohn's disease

• Conducted 208 service projects for 113 customers, including signing 8 contracts with the potential to generate future milestones and/or royalty payments

Financial summary

• Revenues up 73.7% to £9.9 million (Year-ended March 2015: £5.7 million)
• Research and Development expenditure up 41% to £4.2 million (Year-ended March 2015: £3.0 million)
• Reported loss after tax of £9.7 million (Year-ended March 2015: £4.7 million)
• Cash and cash equivalents of £13.7 million (March 2015: £5.8 million)

• True North Therapeutics presented positive results from a Phase I study of TNT009 in patients suffering from cold-agglutinin disease at the Congress of the European Hematology Association

Ken Cunningham, Chairman of Abzena, commented:

"Over the last 12 months, Abzena has been delivering on its growth strategy. This transformational year has seen the international expansion of the Group's operational footprint with the completion of two acquisitions in the US.

The Group is now able to support its partners further through the drug development process and to position its technologies to a broader set of customers."

John Burt, CEO of Abzena, commented:

"Abzena is fast becoming a preferred partner for biopharmaceutical services. The integration of our businesses in the UK and US enables us to offer more services to a broader set of organisations and helps existing customers access the tools to translate their research into clinical products.

We continue to focus on our growth strategy, investing in internal research & development to provide next generation technologies and enhancing our GMP manufacturing capabilities. ABZENA Inside partners and service customers alike are reacting very positively to our enlarged offering and we expect the number of opportunities to work on programmes across the Group to increase in the next financial year."

For the full release, please visit the Group website at www.abzena.com.

About Abzena

Abzena (AIM: ABZA) provides proprietary technologies and complementary services to enable the development and manufacture of biopharmaceutical products, a growing area that requires specialist knowledge and expertise. The Group has a global customer base which includes the majority of the top 20 biopharmaceutical companies as well as large and small biotech companies and academic groups.

The term ABZENA Inside is used by Abzena to describe products that have been created using its proprietary technologies and are being developed by its partners, and include Composite Human Antibodies™ and ThioBridge™ antibody drug conjugates. Abzena has the potential to earn future licence fees, milestone payments and/or royalties on ABZENA Inside products.

Abzena offers the following services and technologies across its principal sites in Cambridge (UK), San Diego, California (USA) and Bristol, Pennsylvania (USA).

• Immunogenicity assessment, protein engineering to create humanized antibodies and deimmunised therapeutic proteins, and cell line development for manufacture.
• Contract process development and manufacture of biopharmaceuticals, including monoclonal antibodies, recombinant proteins, vaccines, and gene therapy and cell therapy products, for preclinical and clinical studies.
• Proprietary site-specific conjugation technologies for antibody drug conjugate development and solutions for optimizing the therapeutic properties of biopharmaceuticals.
• Contract chemistry and bioconjugation business focused on ADCs and is establishing the capability to manufacture ADCs to GMP standards.

For more information, please see www.abzena.com

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160613006593/en/

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