Avacta’s pre|CISION Mechanism for Payload Delivery Shows Key Advantages Compared to an Antibody Drug Conjugate in Innovative AI-Driven Analysis

Experimental data from FAP-Exd (AVA6103) demonstrates a more favorable profile compared to the marketed Antibody Drug Conjugate (ADC) Enhertu ® Clinical trial with AVA6103 is expected to be initiated in Q1 2026 LONDON and PHILADELPHIA – February 24, 2026 – Avacta Therapeutics (AIM: AVCT, “the Company”, “Avacta”), a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing pre|CISION ® , a tumor-activated oncology delivery platform, today published new data which demonstrates the favorable delivery profile and advantages of its proprietary pre|CISION platform’s compared to a marketed antibody drug conjugate (ADC). The data analysis compares pre|CISION FAP-cleavable payload delivery with that of Enhertu ® , a protease cleavable-linker ADC, approved for both breast cancer and gastric cancer indications (an AstraZeneca/Daiichi Sankyo product, trastuzumab-deruxtecan (T-Dxd), an exatecan-derivative ADC). Avacta expects to initiate the Phase 1 clinical trial of its FAP-Exd (AVA6103) program in Q1 2026 . Christina Coughlin, CEO of Avacta commented, “Our analysis demonstrates three potential advantages of our proprietary pre|CISION delivery mechanism when compared to the marketed ADC, Enhertu ® : more rapid drug penetration into the tumor, a one log higher absolute maximum drug concentration in the tumor and the Tumor Selectivity Index (a critical safety and effectiveness measure) being nearly three-fold higher. “This data analysis supports our belief that our pre|CISION payload delivery mechanism has many key advantages over the ADC mechanism, currently one of the most successful drug classes in oncology. “This innovative use of AI to recreate a synthetic comparator arm also demonstrated the creativity and expertise of our team. This synthetic comparator allows a direct comparison of the FAP-Exd data with the data published by the Enhertu ® team, rather than repeating their experiments in-house. “We believe the observations in this dataset have significantly increased the probability of success with FAP-Exd, given both the ability of FAP-Exd to deliver more payload selectively to the tumor in the preclinical setting and success of Enhertu ® in the clinic. We look forward to the start of the clinical trial.” The analysis uses a synthetic comparator arm that was generated using AI to recreate a published AstraZeneca data set 1 and compare to experimental data generated with FAP-Exd (AVA6103) in a similar experimental design using a FAP-high animal model with two drugs using similar payloads (exatecan and deruxtecan). The analysis demonstrates three key pharmacokinetic (PK) advantages in the kinetics of the release of payload, specifically: AVA6103 results in more rapid drug penetration into the tumor, with the maximal concentration (C max ) in tumor tissue occurring within minutes of dosing compared with T-Dxd maximum concentration observed at 24 hours; The observed absolute maximum concentration (C max ) observed with FAP-Exd in the tumor was more than a log higher than the C max observed with T-Dxd; and The Tumor Selectivity Index (TSI, ratio of the area under the curve (AUC) observed over 14 days in the tumor v. plasma) was nearly three-fold higher with pre|CISION ® delivery (FAP-Exd) versus ADC delivery (T-Dxd). Avacta’s scientists have also described two key impacts of these PK differences in animal efficacy models, including (1) higher activity of FAP-Exd in tumor models having the lowest observed expression of FAP compared with variable activity of T-Dxd at low expression levels of HER2 and (2) deep, durable responses that are observed to persist for many weeks after the 3 dose regimen  with FAP-Exd. Avacta scientists plan to present these data at an upcoming scientific congress and submit to a peer-reviewed journal in the near future. Enhertu is a registered trademark of AstraZeneca and Daiichi Sankyo. 1 Vasalou C , et al. Quantitative evaluation of trastuzumab deruxtecan pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics in mouse models of varying degrees of HER2 expression. CPT Pharmacometrics Syst Pharmacol . 2024 (6):994-1005. doi: 10.1002/psp4.13133 (AZ nonclinical data)

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