Groundbreaking oncology development with the first dual payload peptide drug conjugate platform, establishing Avacta as a leader in combination therapy innovation
LONDON and PHILADELPHIA – October 13, 2025 – Avacta Therapeutics (AIM: AVCT, ‘Avacta’, ‘the Company’), a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing pre|CISION®, a unique oncology delivery platform, today announces that the Company will present data on its first dual-payload peptide drug conjugate (PDC) at the 2025 AACR-NCI-EORTC International Conference on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics in Boston on October 25.
The data highlights the Company’s proprietary development enabling two complementary drugs to be delivered via a single pre|CISION® medicine, representing the first dual payload PDC in the field. Data presented will be in vitro proof of mechanism for this platform innovation.
Drug combinations are commonly used in cancer therapy to improve outcomes and mitigate against resistance. This novel approach extends the pre|CISION® technology to allow for the selective and controlled release of two cancer-targeting payloads directly in the tumor, from a single molecule via fibroblast activation protein (FAP) cleavage.
Previously, development of the pre|CISION® platform focused on optimizing the delivery of single payloads to the tumor microenvironment leveraging the cleavage event by FAP, expressed in more than 90% of solid tumors. The new dual payload innovation expands the platform’s versatility, opening potential for more complex and effective oncology treatments.
Christina Coughlin, M.D., Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of Avacta, said:
“The development of the first dual payload peptide drug conjugate platform marks a major leap forward in oncology therapy. This significantly extends the potential of our innovative pre|CISION® platform by implementing combination cancer therapy in a single medicine.
“This new IP builds on the success of our FAP-EXd (AVA6103) program, where we invented a sustained release delivery mechanism with the platform. Our novel implementation of the platform extends this observation to now release two drugs from one pre|CISION® molecule. The key factor here is our ability to target the tumor with a cytotoxic drug and attack the known resistance mechanism all in one cancer medicine. By building on the prior knowledge, we have now extended the reach to highly-resistant cancers by targeting key resistance mechanisms.
This drug combination approach demonstrates the value we are building in our proprietary pre|CISION® technology by further underlining its flexibility and unique potential to expand into novel oncology therapeutic approaches.
We look forward to presenting the full data at the 2025 EORTC-NCI-AACR Symposium later this month.”
Event details are below and are available online on the 2025 EORTC-NCI-AACR Symposium website.
Title: Discovery and characterization of novel pre|CISION® technology compounds delivering complementary dual payloads to the tumor microenvironment following FAP cleavage
Authors: Tom Clough, Alexa Kennedy, Ellen Watts, Iva Zlatareva, Folake Orafidiya, Hanna Buist, Jannah Jeon, Sophie Brown, Doug Sammon, Victoria Juskaite, David Jones, Dave Liebowitz, Michelle Morrow, Francis Wilson
Speaker: Francis Wilson
Session: Poster Session C
Date and Time: Saturday, October 25, 12:30-4pm