Achilles Therapeutics plc announced that the first patient has been dosed with personalized clonal neoantigen-reactive T cells, or cNeT, manufactured with the Company's higher-dose VELOS™ Process 2 in the ongoing Phase I/IIa CHIRON clinical trial for the treatment of advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Additionally, following a positive review by an Independent Data Safety Monitoring Committee, the Company has initiated enrollment in Cohort B of the THETIS clinical trial to evaluate cNeT in combination with a PD-1 checkpoint inhibitor for the treatment of metastatic malignant melanoma. VELOS is a scalable commercial manufacturing process designed to be closed and automated.

The proprietary process uses dendritic cells to deliver a personalized, precision T cell-based therapy that selectively targets multiple clonal neoantigens with improved T cell fitness and reduced need for high-dose IL-2. As original mutations formed early in cancer development, clonal neoantigens are protein markers present on all cancer cells but absent from healthy tissue, making them ideal cancer targets.