Achilles Therapeutics Announces Research Collaboration with Arcturus Therapeutics to Explore Second-Generation Personalized mRNA Cancer Vaccines

Combines Achilles’ best-in-class AI-driven, tumor-targeting technology with Arcturus’ world-leading self-amplifying mRNA platform

Combined technologies have the potential to generate potent and durable T cell responses in pre-clinical IND-enabling studies        

LONDON, May 22, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Achilles Therapeutics plc (NASDAQ: ACHL), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing AI-powered precision T cell therapies to treat solid tumors, today announced a research collaboration with Arcturus Therapeutics Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: ARCT), an mRNA medicines company, to evaluate best-in-class, self-amplifying mRNA (sa-mRNA) personalized cancer vaccines (PCVs) targeting clonal neoantigens. The research collaboration will combine Achilles’ best-in-class AI-driven, tumor-targeting technology with Arcturus’ world-leading sa-mRNA platform.

“This collaboration combines the unique capability of PELEUS to select targets with the highest immunogenic potential expressed by all tumour cells, together with the proven, world-class STARR vaccine platform. With this combination we aim to deliver more potent and durable responses that could positively impact the outcomes for patients,” said Dr Iraj Ali, CEO of Achilles Therapeutics. “While we advance our TIL-based, clonal neoantigen reactive T cells (cNeT) programs in the ongoing CHIRON and THETIS Phase 2 trials, this collaboration allows us to leverage our neoantigen expertise in a new modality that could benefit a different group of earlier-stage patients."

The collaboration has the potential to generate IND-enabling data which demonstrate the ability of PELEUS to select multiple, highly immunogenic clonal neoantigens that can be expressed with the Arcturus STARR platform to generate potent and durable T cell responses. Any subsequent clinical development will be jointly agreed by the parties.

About Cancer Vaccines
Tumor cells will typically express hundreds of mutations, called neoantigens, as potential targets for immunotherapy, however only a very small proportion of these are able to induce T cell responses that can lead to tumor control. Cancer vaccines aim to boost the activity of the T cells that can recognize these rare neoantigens. However, vaccine platforms are limited by the number of neoantigens they can target (typically 20-30) and it is therefore critical to select the most potent neoantigens that can activate the T cells in order to maximize the potential of delivering clinical efficacy. Achilles’ PELEUS platform uses proprietary AI-technology to select the most immunogenic clonal neoantigens with the lowest immune evasion potential that are present on all of a patient’s cancer cells.