Fusion Antibodies plc announces that it has signed acollaboration agreement (the "Agreement") with the National Cancer Institute ("NCI") for the use of OptiMAL® in the discovery of novel antibodies against targets selected by NCI. Under the terms of the Agreement, Fusion will provide access to the OptiMAL® technology to NCI for deployment against an agreed number of targets, being primarily cancer targets, over a period of up to two years, in order to develop potential therapeutic antibodies against the selected targets. The parties will work together to ensure successful validation of the OptiMAL® technology and jointly publish any results from the collaboration.

The validation will be run at NCI's laboratories by their staff and antibodies identified pursuant to the Agreement would be retained by NCI. NCI, part of the US National Institutes of Health, is the US federal government's principal agency for cancer research and training.