Excision BioTherapeutics Announces Positive Preclinical Data Highlighting the Safety, Potency and Development Progress of the Hepatitis B EBT-107 Program at the ICE-HBV “Hepatitis B Cure Symposium”

– Oral presentation highlights significant reduction in HBV DNA integration and other clinically-relevant biomarkers from the EBT-107 therapeutic candidate in preclinical mouse models

WATERTOWN, Mass., Sept. 15, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Excision BioTherapeutics, Inc. (“Excision”, the “Company”), a biotechnology company developing CRISPR-based therapies to cure serious latent viral infectious diseases, today announced that positive preclinical data from its Hepatitis B virus (HBV) EBT-107 program were presented at the 6th ICE-HBV “HBV Cure Symposium” which took place on September 12, 2025, in Berlin, Germany.

Chronic hepatitis B caused by infection of hepatitis B virus (HBV) is one of the most prevalent infectious diseases worldwide that lacks curative therapies. While existing antiviral and immunomodulator treatments slow progression of liver disease by reducing viral load, they fail to eliminate covalently closed circular DNA (cccDNA) that enables persistent viral infection. Excision’s lead product candidate for the treatment of HBV infection, EBT-107, uses dual guide RNAs to excise large sections of viral DNA and effectively deactivate the virus.

“A series of in vitro and in vivo studies demonstrate that our dual guide-RNA-mediated editing strategy effectively eliminates intrahepatic HBV DNA molecules and suppresses HBV DNA integration that may drive hepatocarcinogenesis,” said Daniel Dornbusch, Chief Executive Officer of Excision. “Importantly, the safety of EBT-107 also continues to look very favorable, demonstrating that nuclease-mediated fragmentation of episomal HBV DNA copies did not lead to an overall increase in viral DNA integration into the host genomes, and there were also no differences in chromosomal translocations observed between controls and treated liver samples. We believe that these data further validate our HBV program and support the advancement of EBT-107 toward human clinical trials.”

The details of the presentation are below:

Title: EBT-107, HBV-Targeting CRISPR/Cas9 Gene Editing Therapy with Dual Guide RNAs
Excision Program: EBT-107 (HBV)
Session Type: Oral presentation
Presenter: Ryo Takeuchi, Excision BioTherapeutics
Date/Time: Sep 12, 2025, 8:30 to 11:30 am (CDT)

Using deep sequencing assays, we investigated DNA repair outcomes of double strand breaks that specifically were generated by the EBT-107 therapeutic candidate in HBV-infected primary human hepatocytes (PHHs) and two chronic hepatitis B (CHB) mouse models. Excision’s multiplex gene editing not only reduced biomarkers and intrahepatic HBV DNA but also introduced a range of DNA edits including excision to inactive the residual viral copies. In addition, our treatment suppressed de novo HBV DNA integration, suggesting that fragmentation of episomal HBV DNA by our gene editing nuclease does not lead to an overall increase in viral DNA integration into the host genomes. EBT-107 may offer a new class of safe and potentially curative treatment.

About Excision BioTherapeutics, Inc.
Excision BioTherapeutics, Inc. develops CRISPR-based medicines as potential cures for serious viral latent infectious diseases. The Company’s proprietary, multiplexed gene editing platform unites CRISPR technologies with a novel gene editing approach which demonstrated the ability to stop viral replication. Excision’s pipeline targets large, underserved markets including herpes simplex virus (HSV-1 keratitis), hepatitis B virus (HBV), and human immunodeficiency virus-1 (HIV-1). Excision’s foundational technologies were developed in the laboratories of Dr. Kamel Khalili at Temple University and Dr. Jennifer Doudna at the University of California, Berkeley. For more information, please visit www.excision.bio.

Contact:
John Fraunces
LifeSci Advisors
917-355-2395
jfraunces@lifesciadvisors.com

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