Achilles Therapeutics to Host KOL Webcast to Highlight TRACERx Study Presentations from the 2022 AACR Annual Meeting

• Webcast will feature Professor Charles Swanton, TRACERx Chief Investigator and Achilles co-founder
• Panel will discuss how TRACERx real-world data enable Achilles’ AI-powered PELEUS bioinformatics platform to identify and validate clonal neoantigens as targets for personalized T cell therapies
• Webcast scheduled for Thursday, April 14, 2022 at 10:30am ET / 3:30pm UK

LONDON, April 04, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Achilles Therapeutics plc (NASDAQ: ACHL), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing precision T cell therapies to treat solid tumors, today announced that the Company will host a key opinion leader (KOL) webcast to discuss the importance and unique utility of the TRACERx study in validating the identification of clonal neoantigens as targets for personalized T cell therapies and to highlight selections from the 31 posters and presentations on the TRACERx study presented at the 2022 American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting.

Event details:

• Date: Thursday, April 14, 2022
• Time: 10:30am ET / 3:30pm UK
• Location: Webcast details available in the Events & Presentations section of the Achilles website

TRACERx, or TRAcking Cancer Evolution through therapy (Rx), is led by Professor Charles Swanton at UCL and is one of the largest deep sequencing, multi-region and multi-time point genetic data sets, with over 3,200 tumor samples from nearly 800 lung cancer patients.

The event will feature presentations from:

• Professor Charles Swanton FRCP BSc PhD, Chief Investigator of the TRACERx study, who will review the importance of TRACERx in transforming the understanding of tumor evolution and clonality and will highlight select TRACERx presentations from the 2022 AACR Annual Meeting.
• Achilles Therapeutics management who will discuss the use of TRACERx study data in developing and validating the Company’s AI-enabled PELEUS bioinformatics platform and how real-world TRACERx data validates clonal neoantigen identification.

A “fireside chat” question and answer session will follow, moderated by Joseph Catanzaro, Ph.D., Senior Analyst, Piper Sandler, and will include panelist members:

• Professor Charles Swanton FRCP BSc PhD, Chief Investigator of the TRACERx study and Achilles Therapeutics Co-Founder
• Sergio Quezada, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer of Achilles Therapeutics
• Iraj Ali, PhD, Chief Executive Officer of Achilles Therapeutics

About Achilles Therapeutics
Achilles is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing precision T cell therapies targeting clonal neoantigens: protein markers unique to the individual that are expressed on the surface of every cancer cell. The Company has two ongoing Phase I/IIa trials, the CHIRON trial in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and the THETIS trial in patients with recurrent or metastatic melanoma. Achilles uses DNA sequencing data from each patient, together with its proprietary PELEUS™ bioinformatics platform, to identify clonal neoantigens specific to that patient, and then develop precision T cell-based product candidates specifically targeting those clonal neoantigens.

About TRACERx
TRACERx (TRAcking Cancer Evolution through therapy (Rx)), led by Professor Charles Swanton at UCL, is one of the largest tumor evolution studies to generate deep sequencing multi-region and multi-time point genetic data from over 3,200 tumor samples from nearly 800 lung cancer patients. TRACERx has transformed the understanding of tumor evolution and has convincingly shown that tumors originate from a single cell that evolves in a Darwinian manner and the early (clonal) mutations are preserved in all subsequent primary and metastatic tumor cells. The study, which has generated numerous publications, uncovered important mechanisms of cancer evolution and immune evasion by analyzing genetic signatures in lung tumors and tracking how they evolve over time from diagnosis through to relapse. These findings provide the ability to identify a novel class of tumor markers called clonal neoantigens that are present on all tumor cells yet absent from healthy tissue, making them ideal cancer targets. TRACERx represents the largest investment in lung cancer research by Cancer Research UK and Achilles has exclusive commercial rights to the TRACERx study data for development of neoantigen-targeting cell therapies.

About PELEUS
PELEUS is a proprietary, AI-powered bioinformatics platform built and validated through exclusive access to TRACERx knowhow and genomics data. PELEUS uses sophisticated Bayesian statistical algorithms to distinguish which mutations, or neoantigens, in a patient’s tumor are clonal or subclonal by synthesizing DNA sequencing information from multiple tumor regions. Clonal neoantigens are protein markers that are present on all of an individual’s cancer cells but are absent from healthy tissue, making them ideal cancer targets. The information from PELEUS provides the foundation for Achilles’ VELOS manufacturing process to produce clonal neoantigen-reactive T cells, or cNeT.

Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains express or implied forward-looking statements that are based on our management’s belief and assumptions and on information currently available to our management. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, these statements relate to future events or our future operational or financial performance, and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause our actual results, performance, or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements in this press release represent our views as of the date of this press release. We anticipate that subsequent events and developments will cause our views to change. However, while we may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, we have no current intention of doing so except to the extent required by applicable law. You should therefore not rely on these forward-looking statements as representing our views as of any date subsequent to the date of this press release.

Investors:
Achilles Therapeutics
Lee M. Stern, VP, IR & External Communications
l.stern@achillestx.com

LifeSci Advisors
John Mullaly
jmullaly@lifesciadvisors.com

Media:
Consilium Strategic Communications
Mary-Jane Elliott, Sukaina Virdi, Melissa Gardiner
+44 (0) 203 709 5000
achillestx@consilium-comms.com