Avacta Group Plc announced that it has entered into a consultancy agreement with Dr. Christina Coughlin (the "Consultancy Agreement"), currently a Non-Executive Director of the Group, as it seeks to appoint a full-time Chief Medical Officer. Dr. Coughlin will retain her position on the Avacta Board as a Non-Executive Director. In advance of appointing a full-time CMO, the Company will leverage the expertise of Dr. Coughlin on a temporary basis through the Consultancy Agreement.

Dr. Coughlin is a highly experienced clinical oncologist with a broad background in biotechnology, global pharmaceuticals, and comprehensive experience in drug development from pre-IND to filing. Dr. Coughlin also has a proven track record of building drug development teams in global companies. Avacta also announced that Neil Bell, Chief Development Officer of the Group, will be leaving the Company.

Under Neil's guidance over the last three years, the Company has established a clinical development infrastructure which will help support the Company's clinical programmes going forwards. Dr. Coughlin, M.D., Ph.D. was previously the Chief Executive Officer of Cytolmmune Therapeutics LLC, a clinical-stage biotechnology company, focused on the development and commercialisation of novel cancer immunotherapy products designed to use the patient's own immune system to eliminate cancer cells. She also served as Chief Medical Officer to Rubius Therapeutics.

Inc, where she led the clinical development, translational medicine and regulatory efforts in the allogeneic red cell therapy platform. Prior to Rubius, Dr. Coughlin was with Tmunity Therapeutics Inc., where she served as Chief Medical Officer and was responsible for the development of autologous CAR-T and TCR-T cellular therapies.