Basel, Switzerland, April 14, 2023 – Alentis Therapeutics, the Claudin-1 company, today announced that Alberto Toso, Alentis’ SVP Head of Oncology, will present at the American Association for Cancer Research Conference in Orlando, Florida on April 18th.

The poster session entitled, CLAUDIN-1 targeting antibody ALE.C04 drives single agent activity and restores anti-PD1 efficacy in solid tumors, presents evidence that ALE.C04 is a highly specific humanized monoclonal antibody that recognizes a unique CLDN1-exposed epitope in different solid tumors.

Non-Junctional Claudin-1 (NJ-CLDN1) is frequently overexpressed in solid tumors. In in vivo tumor models, ALE.C04 monotherapy drives tumor growth inhibition mainly via antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity in different cell line-derived and patient-derived xenografts.

Notably, CLDN1 expression on tumor cells positively correlates with T-cell exclusion, a mechanism described to hinder the efficacy of checkpoint inhibitors. In mouse tumor cells, the overexpression of CLDN1 promoted T-cell exclusion and resistance to anti-PD1 treatment. Alentis has been able to demonstrate that ALE.C04 restored both T-cell infiltration and anti-PD1 efficacy in tumors. Mechanistically, CLDN1 interacts with different components involved in extracellular matrix remodeling establishing a physical barrier that excludes immune cells from the tumor nest. ALE.C04 disturbs the interface between CLDN1+ tumor cells and the stroma restoring immune cell infiltration. Our pre-clinical data showed that CLDN1 is a novel and druggable target in solid tumors and is a selective anti-CLDN1 antibody capable of driving anti-tumor activity as both single agent and in combination with anti-PD1.

ALE.C04, Alentis’ lead oncology asset, is the first treatment to target CLDN1+ tumors. Based on the pre-clinical data, Alentis is planning a first-in-human clinical trial with ALE.C04 in the second half of 2023.