New contract with top five pharma company

Contract value visibility for the current financial year of £1.75 million

Aptamer Group plc (AIM: APTA), the developer of next-generation synthetic binders for the life sciences industry, is pleased to announce that it has secured a new contract with a top five pharmaceutical company, with a value of up to £617,000.

This new contract is the third project with this pharmaceutical company and demonstrates a strong validation of the Optimer® platform, which continues to deliver tools to support their key therapeutic developments. Having demonstrated superior performance of Optimer® binders over traditional antibodies in the Group's previous project, the partner is now scaling the relationship with a multi-target programme.

Under the agreement, Aptamer will develop Optimer® binders against three key drug targets and provide critical support for ELISA assay development. These tools will enable the partner to validate drug candidates and may also be used to analyse patient samples during clinical trials, potentially leading to clinical diagnostic development.

Importantly, Aptamer retains full intellectual property rights to all developed Optimers, creating potential for future licensing revenues across each of the three targets as these binders prove their value in commercial applications.

Following a period of strong pipeline conversion during the first four months of the financial year, Aptamer has signed contract value of £1.75 million, which is a 46% increase compared to the £1.2 million reported at the same time last year. This gives the management team confidence in the delivery of continued growth for FY26, building on that achieved during FY25.

Dr Arron Tolley, Chief Executive Officer of Aptamer Group, said: "This contract represents significant commercial validation and increasing traction of our Optimer® technology platform. The decision by a top five pharmaceutical partner to commission this large-scale, multi-target programme follows the successful completion of a proof-of-concept project where we demonstrated the superior performance of our Optimers compared to traditional antibodies and our ability to successfully deliver binders, to support our customers with their critical projects.

This means the Group now has signed contract value of £1.75 million for this financial year, with eight months of the financial year still remaining. As such, we are well-positioned to build on last year's performance and deliver sustained revenue growth. We continue to build a robust foundation of repeat business with leading pharmaceutical partners, converting our commercial pipeline into long-term value for shareholders."

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