REG - Avacta Group PLC - PreCISION payload delivery advantage over ADC

AvactaAnnouncement

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RNS Number : 0868U  Avacta Group PLC  24 February 2026

 

Avacta's pre|CISION Mechanism for Payload Delivery Shows Key Advantages
Compared to an Antibody Drug Conjugate in Innovative AI-Driven Analysis

 

Experimental data from FAP-Exd (AVA6103) demonstrates a more favorable profile
compared to the marketed Antibody Drug Conjugate (ADC) Enhertu(®)

 

Clinical trial with AVA6103 is expected to be initiated in Q1 2026

 

LONDON and PHILADELPHIA - February 24, 2026 - Avacta Therapeutics (AIM: AVCT,
"the Company", "Avacta"), a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company
developing pre|CISION(®), a tumor-activated oncology delivery platform,
today published new data which demonstrates the favorable delivery profile and
advantages of its proprietary pre|CISION platform's compared to a marketed
antibody drug conjugate (ADC).

 

The data analysis compares pre|CISION FAP-cleavable payload delivery with that
of Enhertu(®), a protease cleavable-linker ADC, approved for both breast
cancer and gastric cancer indications (an AstraZeneca/Daiichi Sankyo product,
trastuzumab-deruxtecan (T-Dxd), an exatecan-derivative ADC).

 

Avacta expects to initiate the Phase 1 clinical trial of its FAP-Exd (AVA6103)
program in Q1 2026.

 

Christina Coughlin, CEO of Avacta commented,

 

"Our analysis demonstrates three potential advantages of our proprietary
pre|CISION delivery mechanism when compared to the marketed ADC, Enhertu(®):
more rapid drug penetration into the tumor, a one log higher absolute maximum
drug concentration in the tumor and the Tumor Selectivity Index (a critical
safety and effectiveness measure) being nearly three-fold higher.

 

"This data analysis supports our belief that our pre|CISION payload delivery
mechanism has many key advantages over the ADC mechanism, currently one of the
most successful drug classes in oncology.

 

"This innovative use of AI to recreate a synthetic comparator arm also
demonstrated the creativity and expertise of our team. This synthetic
comparator allows a direct comparison of the FAP-Exd data with the data
published by the Enhertu(®) team, rather than repeating their experiments
in-house.

 

"We believe the observations in this dataset have significantly increased the
probability of success with FAP-Exd, given both the ability of FAP-Exd to
deliver more payload selectively to the tumor in the preclinical setting and
success of Enhertu(®) in the clinic. We look forward to the start of the
clinical trial."

 

 

The analysis uses a synthetic comparator arm that was generated using AI to
recreate a published AstraZeneca data set(1) and compare to experimental data
generated with FAP-Exd (AVA6103) in a similar experimental design using a
FAP-high animal model with two drugs using similar payloads (exatecan and
deruxtecan).

 

The analysis demonstrates three key pharmacokinetic (PK) advantages in the
kinetics of the release of payload, specifically:

1.   AVA6103 results in more rapid drug penetration into the tumor, with the
maximal concentration (C(max)) in tumor tissue occurring within minutes of
dosing compared with T-Dxd maximum concentration observed at 24 hours;

2.   The observed absolute maximum concentration (C(max)) observed with
FAP-Exd in the tumor was more than a log higher than the C(max) observed with
T-Dxd; and

3.   The Tumor Selectivity Index (TSI, ratio of the area under the curve
(AUC) observed over 14 days in the tumor v. plasma) was nearly three-fold
higher with pre|CISION(®) delivery (FAP-Exd) versus ADC delivery (T-Dxd).

 

Avacta's scientists have also described two key impacts of these PK
differences in animal efficacy models, including (1) higher activity of
FAP-Exd in tumor models having the lowest observed expression of FAP compared
with variable activity of T-Dxd at low expression levels of HER2 and (2) deep,
durable responses that are observed to persist for many weeks after the 3 dose
regimen  with FAP-Exd.

 

Avacta scientists plan to present these data at an upcoming scientific
congress and submit to a peer-reviewed journal in the near future.

 

Enhertu is a registered trademark of AstraZeneca and Daiichi Sankyo.

 

(1)Vasalou C, et al. Quantitative evaluation of trastuzumab deruxtecan
pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics in mouse models of varying degrees of
HER2 expression. CPT Pharmacometrics Syst Pharmacol. 2024 (6):994-1005. doi:
10.1002/psp4.13133 (AZ nonclinical data)

 

-Ends-

 

For further information from Avacta, please contact:

 

 Avacta Group plc                                   https://avacta.com/ (https://avacta.com/)

 Christina Coughlin, Chief Executive Officer        via Cohesion Bureau

 Strand Hanson Limited (Nominated Adviser)          www.strandhanson.co.uk (http://www.strandhanson.co.uk)

 James Harris / Chris Raggett / James Dance

 Zeus (Broker)                                      www.zeuscapital.co.uk (http://www.zeuscapital.co.uk)

 James Hornigold / George Duxberry / Dominic King

 Cohesion Bureau (Communications)                   avacta@cohesionbureau.com (mailto:avacta@cohesionbureau.com)

 Richard Jarvis / Chris Maggos

 

About Avacta - https://avacta.com/ (https://avacta.com/)

Avacta Therapeutics is a clinical-stage life sciences company expanding the
reach of highly potent cancer therapies with the pre|CISION(®) platform.
pre|CISION(®) is a proprietary payload delivery system based on a
tumor-specific protease (fibroblast activation protein or FAP) that is
designed to concentrate highly potent payloads in the tumor microenvironment
while sparing normal tissues.

 

Our innovative pipeline consists of pre|CISION(®) peptide drug conjugates
(PDC) or Affimer® drug conjugates (AffDC) that leverage the tumor-specific
release mechanism, providing unique benefits over traditional antibody drug
conjugates.

 

The pre|CISION(®) platform comprises an anticancer payload conjugated to a
proprietary peptide that is a highly specific substrate for fibroblast
activation protein (FAP) which is upregulated in most solid tumors compared
with healthy tissues. The pre|CISION(®) platform harnesses this tumor
specific protease to cleave pre|CISION(®) peptide drug conjugates and
pre|CISION(®) antibody/Affimer(®) drug conjugates in the tumor
microenvironment, thus releasing active payload in the tumor and reducing
systemic exposure and toxicity, allowing dosing to be optimized to deliver the
best outcomes for patients.

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