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LONDON, April 10, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Achilles Therapeutics plc (NASDAQ: ACHL), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing precision T cell therapies to treat solid tumors, today presented a patient case study from the Company’s ongoing Phase I/IIa THETIS trial in metastatic or recurrent melanoma at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2021. Through a comprehensive translational research program, data from Patient T-05 offer insight into the in vivo dynamics of clonal neoantigen T cells (cNeT) post-dosing and the potential to develop a potency-based release assay.
“As we move through our Phase I/IIa THETIS and CHIRON clinical programs in metastatic melanoma and advanced non-small cell lung cancer, it is important to quantify and characterize cNeT, the active component in our precision T cell therapy, prior to and after cell infusion,” said Dr Sergio Quezada, Chief Scientific Officer of Achilles. “The data from this case study show a polyclonal response and demonstrate our ability to establish product specificity, polyclonal reactivities, monitor persistence and expansion, as well as derive associations to efficacy. These are important differentiators of our technology that provide a mechanistic understanding of TIL therapy and potentially lend themselves to a reproducible potency assay.”
In a case study from the ongoing THETIS trial, a patient diagnosed with cutaneous melanoma received a three-cycle combination of ipilimumab and nivolumab which was stopped due to toxicity. In 2020, the patient had a recurrent lesion excised and cNeT manufactured through the VELOSTM process. The specificity and fitness of the cNeT were measured by flow cytometric analysis of IFN-γ and TNF-α cytokines, markers of T cell activity. Up to 53% of the T cells in the manufactured product were reactive to the patient’s own clonal neoantigens following stimulation. cNeT can be tracked after dosing by using peptides that incorporate patient-specific clonal mutations from the tumor to stimulate cells from the blood of the patient. By using ELISpot technology to detect cNeT that produce cytokine in response to this stimulus, the expansion and persistence of cNeT in circulation can be calculated.
Details of the poster presentation:
Poster Title: Characterization of a novel clonal neoantigen reactive T cell (cNeT) product through a comprehensive translational research program
Poster Number: 1508
Poster Session Category / Title: Immunology / Adoptive Cell Therapy
The poster and full session details can be found at www.aacr.org. The poster is also available in the Events & Presentations section of the Achilles website at https://ir.achillestx.com/events-and-presentations.