Aptamer Group PLC on Thursday said it has signed two new contracts with an unnamed ‘top five pharma partner’, valued up to £219,000.

Aptamer is a York-based provider of Optimer binders for use in therapeutics, diagnostics, bioprocessing and research. Its shares were down 6.8% to 1.73 pence each in London on Thursday morning, after briefly rising 18% to 2.18p each.

The first contract is for the development of an Optimer pair to a neurodegenerative biomarker for use in an immunoassay platform.

The second contract is a follow-on contract for the final stage of Optimer development to a neuronal protein target for immunohistochemistry, following positive results in the earlier stages of Optimer development.

‘Optimer binders are being sought as alternatives to traditional antibodies for analytical assays to enable increased accuracy and selectivity in the detection of validated biomarkers, while the extended target range of Optimer binders compared with antibodies enables the generation of reagents to novel biomarkers,’ Aptamer said.

It noted that the two contracts represent further conversion of the sales pipeline announced previously.

The final value to be recognised as revenue for these new contracts will be subject to scientific and commercial attrition as the contracts progress, which is scheduled to be completed over the course of the current financial year. They are currently valued up to £219,000.

Chief Executive Rob Quinn said: ‘These two projects are further evidence of the need for Optimer binders to meet challenging requirements for use in real-world applications when, to date, antibodies have been unable to provide a satisfactory solution, such as IHC. Building awareness and adoption of Optimer technology by such partners is key to allowing us to deliver on our strategy of executing therapeutic, diagnostic, and bioprocessing licensing deals.’

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