Aptamer Group plc announced further agreements for Optimer development with a combined value of up to £275,000 including three of the top ten global pharmaceutical companies. Upon development success, several of the partnerships include the potential for additional follow-on fee-for-service development work and potential licensing. These agreements represent the latest round of conversions from the Company's expanded sales pipeline, which now totals £3.2 million following the conversion of both the recently announced contract with Timser Group and the deals announced herein.

This represents a conversion of circa 16% of the £3.9 million pipeline the Company started the week with (up from £3.0 million stated in last week's trading update). These converted sales have been passed to production, increasing the current production pipeline value to £1.9 million, which will be converted to revenue in due course. The Company anticipates further contracts, currently in final negotiation stages, will close before the financial year's end.

The directors are encouraged by this increase in customer confidence and by the recent rapid expansion of the pipeline, which the Company intends to capitalise on over the coming months. In relation to the three larger contracts, the first agreement with a top ten pharmaceutical company will develop Optimer binders to improve the manufacture of biologic drugs. The Optimer binders will enable improved drug purification for the customer, preventing product loss.

Upon success in this project, there is potential for further downstream development contracts for Aptamer. The second agreement with a top ten pharmaceutical company will develop a pair of Optimer+ binders for use in a highly sensitive immunoassay platform. The Optimer+ platform was selected due to its rapid development timeline.

There is potential for the binders to be used in a clinical trial, supporting further use and follow-on contracts. The third agreement with a top five pharmaceutical company will develop Optimer binders to a known cancer target for use in flow cytometry assays. This will support accurate pharmacokinetic analysis in drug development, where other affinity ligands, such as antibodies, have failed to perform as required.

Additional smaller contracts, which were secured with a value of up to £60,000 (total £275,000). Some projects are expected to progress through the laboratory by the end of the financial year, with others enhancing the production pipeline for the following year.