ZURICH, Switzerland I April 08, 2022 I Araris Biotech AG, a company pioneering a proprietary antibody-drug conjugate (ADC)-linker technology, today announced the company will deliver a poster presentation and an oral presentation at this year’s American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) 2022 Annual Meeting, being held April 8-13, 2022, in New Orleans, Louisiana. The poster presentation highlights the company’s anti-CD79b antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) and the oral presentation, taking place during the conference’s minisymposium, will highlight late-breaking data on a Nectin-4 ADC generated using the company’s proprietary linker technology.

“The preclinical data highlighted in these two presentations demonstrate that we can develop ADCs that not only show improved efficacy and stability but can be synthesized in a fast and highly reproducible manner,” said Philipp Spycher, Ph.D., Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer at Araris Biotech AG. “Our ADCs have the potential to address current challenges seen amongst other currently approved ADC therapies, such as stability and solubility issues, in addition to being able to display favorable biophysical properties. We are looking forward to studying our linker technology further and continuing to advance our anti-CD79b antibody candidate.”

The poster presentation, titled, “A CD79b targeting ADC with superior anti-tumor activity and therapeutic index,” will be available Tuesday, April 12, 2022, from 9:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. CDT. The poster number is 25 and will be presented by Isabella Attinger-Toller, Ph.D., Co-Founder, Senior VP of Translational Research.

Poster presentation highlights:

  • Using native polatuzumab (non-engineered) as the targeting antibody and monomethyl auristatin E (MMAE) as payload, Araris generated a highly homogenous and pure ADC within 24 hours using its linker technology
    • Well-defined drug-antibody-ratio (DAR) of 1.9 and > 98% monomer content
  • Anti-CD79b ADC (ARADC) was highly stable in human, primate and rodent sera with no observed payload deconjugation or linker cleavage
  • ARADC demonstrated an antibody-like exposure profile comparable to unmodified polatuzumab antibody and twice as long as the FDA-approved polatuzumab-vedotin (PV) (half-life 10 d vs 5d) in mice and rats
  • ARADC showed superior anti-tumor efficacy in a head-to-head study compared to PV using the identical antibody sequence and payload
  • Data indicate an improved therapeutic index by a factor of 6 compared to PV

Additionally, Dr. Attinger-Toller will be giving an oral presentation titled, “Inducing complete and long-lasting tumor eradications at safe and well tolerated doses of a nectin-4 ADC generated with novel peptide linkers for payload conjugation,” during the Minisymposium: Late-Breaking Research on Tuesday April 12, 2022, from 2:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. CDT.

Oral presentation highlights:

  • Utilizing Araris’ linker technology, an anti-Nectin-4 ADC was generated within 24 hours resulting in highly homogenous and pure ADCs with a DAR of ~ 2 and > 98% monomeric content.
  • In In-vitro assays against target positive cell lines, the Araris ADC demonstrated low nM-range cytotoxicity similar to approved enfortrumab-vedotin (EV) (DAR of 4), in addition to excellent stability in mouse, primate and human sera exemplified by the absence of payload deconjugation or linker cleavage
  • In-vivo rodent studies demonstrated the Araris ADC to be extremely stable in circulation with an exposure profile comparable to unmodified parent antibody and a 2-fold half-life increase compared to EV.
  • Efficacy studies performed in a SUM-190PT breast cancer model of the Araris ADC demonstrated superior and complete tumor remission in all animals >100d even at 3x less drug dose applied vs EV.

About Araris Biotech AG
Araris Biotech AG is pioneering the development of its novel antibody-drug conjugate (ADC)-linker technology to enable efficient and precise production of ADCs. Its linker platform enables the attachment of any drug payload to ‘off the shelf’ antibodies, without the need for prior antibody engineering. The resulting ADCs have shown very high activity at low doses and an improved therapeutic index compared to FDA-approved ADCs. Araris is a spin-off company from the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) and ETH Zurich.

For more information, please visit www.ararisbiotech.com or follow Araris on Twitter and LinkedIn.

SOURCE: Araris Biotech