Avacta Group (AIM:AVCT) said on Wednesday that it will present preclinical data on AVA6207, its dual-payload peptide-drug conjugate, at the 38th EORTC-NCI-AACR Symposium on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics in Barcelona from 18 to 20 November.
The AIM-listed clinical-stage life sciences company is developing targeted oncology drugs through its pre|CISION platform, which uses a tumour-specific protein, fibroblast activation protein (FAP), to release drug payloads directly in the tumour microenvironment while limiting exposure to healthy tissue.
AVA6207 combines two mechanisms in a single molecule: a topoisomerase I inhibitor that induces DNA damage in cancer cells, and an inhibitor of ATR kinase that blocks the cell's ability to repair that damage.
Avacta said the dual-payload design has potential to improve outcomes in cancers that have become resistant to topoisomerase I inhibitors, which it described as a growing area of unmet need in oncology.
The poster, titled "AVA6207 is a novel pre|CISION technology compound delivering complementary TOP1i and ATRi payloads to the tumor microenvironment following FAP cleavage," is scheduled for the symposium's DNA Repair Modulation session on 19 November.
AVA6207 sits behind Avacta's lead clinical candidate, AVA6103, a controlled-release pre|CISION version of exatecan currently in the Phase 1 FOCUS-01 trial across tumour types including cervical, HR-positive breast, small cell lung, gastric, colorectal and pancreatic cancer.
The company has previously reported preclinical data showing AVA6207 produced durable complete responses in FAP-high tumour models and durable responses in a FAP-low, HER2-positive gastric cancer model where the comparator drug Enhertu showed tumour regrowth.
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