Achilles Therapeutics

Founded: 2016
CEO: Iraj Ali
Founders: Karl Peggs
Charles Swanton
Mark Lowdell
Sergio Quezada
% Shareholding: 25%
Stage: Clinical
Number of employees: 240+
Listed: NASDAQ
(March 2021)
Clinical trials: 2

Unless stated all financials at 31 December 2023.

Achilles website

Achilles Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing novel cancer immunotherapies targeting clonal neoantigens: protein markers unique to each individual that are expressed on the surface of every cancer cell.

Achilles uses DNA sequencing data from each patient, together with a proprietary bioinformatics platform, to identify clonal neoantigens specific to that patient and enable the development of personalised cell therapies. Targeting multiple clonal neoantigens that are present on all cancer cells, but not on healthy cells, allows individualised treatments to target and destroy tumours without harming healthy tissues.

Achilles has built a world-leading bioinformatics platform to identify clonal neoantigens from each patient’s unique tumour profile. Their proprietary PELEUS^TM platform was developed from their co-founder Professor Charles Swanton’s academic TRACERx bioinformatics pipeline and has been validated using Achilles’ exclusive access to the TRACERx sequence data.

Investment thesis

TILs have shown convincing efficacy in solid tumours*
Leveraging clonal neoantigens to develop patient specific immunotherapies to increase response rates and reduce risk of relapse

Unmet medical need

Lung cancer has limited treatment options and is the leading cause of cancer deaths

Market opportunity

Over 236,000 patients expected to be diagnosed with lung cancer in the United States in 2022**
In 2022, over 197,000 patients are expected to be diagnosed with melanoma in the US***

* Source: Rosenberg et al 2011 - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3131487/pdf/nihms286994.pdf

** Source - https://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/lungb.html

*** Source - https://www.cancer.org/content/dam/cancer-org/research/cancer-facts-and-statistics/annual-cancer-facts-and-figures/2022/2022-cancer-facts-and-figures.pdf