Two late-breaking abstracts will be presentedAU ZH, Switzerland, April 14, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Araris Biotech AG, a company pioneering a proprietary antibody-drug conjugate (ADC)-linker technology, today announced the company will deliver two poster presentations at this year’s American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) 2023 Annual Meeting, being held April 14-19, 2023 at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida. The presentations will highlight late-breaking preclinical data on anti-Nectin-4 and anti-HER2 ADCs generated using the company’s proprietary linker technology. Both ADCs demonstrated improved anti-tumor activity compared to respective FDA approved ADCs in head-to-head in-vivo studies. “The preclinical data highlighted in these two presentations demonstrate that we can develop stable and highly efficacious ADCs with a low drug-load that have an excellent exposure, which we believe may enable us to address key dose-limiting toxicities,” said Philipp Spycher, Ph.D., co-founder and chief executive officer of Araris Biotech AG. “Our ADCs have the potential to address challenges seen amongst other currently approved ADC therapies, such as limited efficacy and tolerability, 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 Nectin-4 program.” The poster presentation titled “Novel peptide linker-based Nectin-4 targeting ADC shows improved tolerability with long-lasting anti-tumor efficacy at low doses” will be presented on April 18, 2023 from 9:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. ET. The poster will be presented by Isabella Attinger-Toller, Ph.D. co-founder and chief technology officer at poster board number 12, abstract number LB219. Poster presentation highlights: Generated an anti-Nectin-4 ADC based on enfortumab as the targeting antibody with monomethyl auristatin E (MMAE) as the payload using Araris’ peptide linker and site-specific enzymatic conjugation approachResulting ADC had a drug-to-antibody-ratio (DAR) of 2. By comparison, the approved enfortumab-vedotin (EV) used a higher payload amount, with a DAR of 4.Araris’ ADC demonstrated potent cell cytotoxicity similar to EV, despite using lower drug load, as well as excellent stability in mouse and human sera exemplified by the absence of payload deconjugation or linker cleavage. EV showed significant payload deconjugationUsing a breast cancer model, Araris’ ADC demonstrated a complete tumor regression lasting for more than 100 days. EV administered at the same payload dose showed only a short and transient (20 day) tumor regression with no animal reaching a complete response.Despite higher in vivo exposure and extremely efficient anti-tumor response at low payload doses, there was no increased toxicity from the Araris ADC. Overall tolerability improved compared to EV The poster presentation titled “Inducing significant and efficient tumor growth inhibition vs. trastuzumab deruxtecan with low drug-load Topoisomerase 1 inhibitor ADC using novel peptide linkers for payload conjugation” will be presented on April 18, 2023 from 9:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. ET. The poster will be presented by Philipp Spycher, Ph.D. co-founder and chief executive officer at poster board number 14, abstract number LB221. Poster presentation highlights: Generated an anti-HER2 ADC based on trastuzumab as the targeting antibody with Topoisomerase 1 (Topo1) inhibitor as payload, using Araris’ peptide linker and site-specific enzymatic conjugation approachResulting ADC had a drug-to-antibody-ratio (DAR) of 2. By comparison, the approved Trastuzumab deruxtecan used a higher payload amount, with a DAR of 8.Araris’ ADC demonstrated potent cell cytotoxicity despite using lower drug load, as well as a pharmacokinetic-profile similar to the naked antibody. Trastuzumab deruxtecan showed faster clearance.Using a colon cancer model, the Araris ADC demonstrated superior anti-tumor activity compared to Trastuzumab deruxtecan, injected at the same payload doses. Araris’ ADC resulted in complete tumor regression lasting the entirety of the study (80 days) and was well tolerated. 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. Corporate Contact:Philipp Spycher, Ph.D.Chief Executive Officerinfo@ararisbiotech.comwww.ararisbiotech.com Media Contact:Veronica EamesLifeSci Communications, LLC veames@lifescicomms.com646-970-4682