Achilles Therapeutics announces research collaboration with Arcturus Therapeutics to explore 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 - 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.
