Achilles follows Instil’s lead

Another day, another company pivots away from tumour-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs); this time it’s Achilles Therapeutics. The group on Thursday said it would discontinue its lead project, ATL001, which involves the TIL product being enriched with neoantigen-reactive T-cells. Achilles previously reckoned this approach could lead to enhanced activity, but has now conceded that its phase 1/2 Chiron and Thetis trials, in NSCLC and melanoma respectively, have not met the bar “for commercial viability”. The company’s next steps are undisclosed, but it said it would look to third parties developing other ways of targeting clonal neoantigens, including neoantigen vaccines, ADCs and T-cell receptor therapies. Achilles has $95.1m to spend on new projects. The group might be hoping to emulate Instil Bio, which got a new lease of life when it pivoted from TILs to a PD-L1 x VEGF bispecific, and indirectly became a winner of the recent World Lung and ESMO conferences. One question is what all this means for the TIL pioneer Iovance, which got Amtagvi approved in second-line this year, but now faces the daunting prospect of a solo launch. Achilles’ shares opened up 47% on Thursday.