Atreca Announces Expansion of Preclinical Pipeline

Atreca Announces Licensing Agreement with Zymeworks

Atreca Declares EphA2-Targeting ADC (ATRC-301) as Clinical Candidate

Virtual R&D Day scheduled for today at 4:15 p.m. EDT

Excerpt from the Press Release:

SAN CARLOS, Calif., April 05, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Atreca, Inc. (Atreca) (NASDAQ: BCEL), a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on developing novel therapeutics generated through a unique discovery platform based on interrogation of the active human immune response, today announced a licensing agreement with Zymeworks Inc. (Zymeworks) (NYSE: ZYME) to utilize their ZymeLink™ technology to develop novel antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) and declared ATRC-301, an ADC targeting a novel epitope on EphA2, as the Company’s next clinical candidate. Atreca management will discuss the agreement, ATRC-301, and its earlier stage pipeline programs during today’s R&D Day beginning at 4:15pm EDT.

“We are pleased to be hosting our first R&D Day and providing an update on our preclinical pipeline in oncology,” said John Orwin, Chief Executive Officer of Atreca. “We are particularly excited to announce our next clinical candidate, ATRC-301, an ADC of an Atreca-discovered antibody targeting EphA2 conjugated using Zymeworks’ proprietary ZymeLink™ platform. Our new agreement with Zymeworks enables us to develop up to three potential ADC products using their technology. Taken together, today’s announcements demonstrate the productivity of our discovery platform and research organization, as well as the potential value of our preclinical programs. Given this productivity and the resulting expansion of our pipeline of oncology programs, we are targeting one additional Investigational New Drug (IND) application per year beginning with ATRC-301 in the second half of 2023.”

Zymeworks Agreement

As part of the licensing agreement with Zymeworks, Atreca’s novel antibodies will be conjugated using ZymeLink™, Zymeworks’ suite of proprietary cytotoxins, linkers, and conjugation technologies. The agreement includes a two-year research term for Atreca to evaluate antibodies as ADC’s using ZymeLink™ with the option for a third year, during which Atreca can acquire up to three commercial licenses to develop three unique ADC programs. Work between the two companies has been ongoing since late 2020.

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