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Achilles Therapeutics Receives Horizon 2020 Grant as Part of Neoantigen ConsortiumLONDON, May 06, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Achilles Therapeutics plc (NASDAQ: ACHL), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing precision T cell therapies to treat solid tumors, today announced that it is a member of a consortium that has been awarded a grant from Horizon 2020, an EU Research and Innovation program. The consortium, which is led by UCL and includes The Francis Crick Institute, the Weizmann Institute of Science, and the Technical University of Denmark, in addition to Achilles, will research the immunogenicity of tumor neoantigens with the aim of developing a tool to predict neoantigen immunogenicity. “Immunotherapy has revolutionized cancer treatment, providing survival benefits to patients with hard-to-treat tumors. There is an increasing call for personalized, precision therapies to induce immune responses against tumor-specific targets,” said Dr Sergio Quezada, Chief Scientific Officer of Achilles. “This grant is a further validation of the work being done at Achilles by our team of world-class scientists. The contribution of our deep experience with neoantigen prediction algorithms and our innovative platform technology will allow the consortium to work toward identifying new immunotherapeutic targets and effective anticancer therapies.” Current technologies struggle to discriminate immunogenic tumor neoantigens from the thousands of background mutations in tumors at scale. The consortium will work together to develop a high throughput neoantigen immunogenicity profiling platform. The project, named DECOD-Ag, will be conducted by a team of world-leading, interdisciplinary scientists from the consortium with expertise in cancer immunotherapy, bioinformatics, peptidomics, mass spectrometry, immune monitoring, clinical and translational medicine. This project has received €3 million ($3.6 million) from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the FETOPEN grant agreement number 964998. Approximately €0.8 million ($1 million) will be allocated to Achilles. 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 the Consortium Members UCL The Francis Crick Institute The Weizmann Institute of Science Technical University of Denmark About Horizon 2020 Horizon 2020 is the financial instrument implementing the Innovation Union, a Europe 2020 flagship initiative aimed at securing Europe's global competitiveness. By coupling research and innovation, Horizon 2020 is helping to achieve this with its emphasis on excellent science, industrial leadership and tackling societal challenges. The goal is to ensure Europe produces world-class science, removes barriers to innovation and makes it easier for the public and private sectors to work together in delivering innovation. For further information please visit: https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/horizon2020/. Forward-Looking Statements Lee M. Stern – VP, IR & External Communications Consilium Strategic Communications |