Exicure to present cancer research data this week

Exicure Inc., a pioneer in gene regulatory and immunotherapeutic drugs utilizing three-dimensional, spherical nucleic acid constructs, said it will present preclinical data in a session at the American Association for Cancer Research 2018 annual meeting in Chicago this week.

The poster titled "TLR9 agonist SNA-induced innate and adaptive immune responses in tumor microenvironment enhance checkpoint inhibitor antitumor activity in mouse tumor models" supports the ongoing clinical development of the company's proprietary SNA technology and highlights its potential impact in the tumor microenvironment in potentiating antitumor effects of anti-PD-1.

The company began testing the trial in the fourth quarter of 2017 and expects the trial to be completed in mid-2018.

AST-008 utilizes Exicure's proprietary spherical nucleic acid technology designed in this case to agonize toll-like receptor 9, or TLR9, for application in immuno-oncology. Exicure has observed that administration of AST-008 as a monotherapy can have anti-tumor activity in colon cancer, breast cancer, lymphoma and melanoma mouse models. The company has also observed that, in preclinical studies in a variety of tumor models, AST-008 applied in combination with certain checkpoint inhibitors exhibited anti-tumor responses and survival rates that were greater than those demonstrated by checkpoint inhibitors alone.