Sanofi has dropped an anticancer antibody-drug conjugate it licensed from ImmunoGen. The French pharma gained full control of the anti-LAMP1 drug as part of a recent deal but has now removed the asset from its pipeline.
ImmunoGen first teamed up with Sanofi to work on ADCs against the target in 2013. That deal gave the biotech a shot at generating up to $30 million in milestones. But last year it agreed to forego this potential source of income in favor of an upfront fee. The revised deal made Sanofi the fully paid-up owner of anti-LAMP1 drug SAR428926.
Any confidence that move implied in the drug has since evaporated. With an open label, 110-person advanced solid tumor trial nearing the end, Sanofi has dropped SAR428926 from its pipeline.
The ADC is one of seven drugs ditched by Sanofi in its latest quarterly results, although in several cases the company had already disclosed its plan to walk away from the assets.
Sanofi first revealed it was stopping development of a phase 3 Clostridium difficile vaccine late last year. And it snuck out news that it was ditching SAR156597 in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis in November. SAR100842, another drug affected by the cull, was last seen in the clinic in 2014. And patisiran has fallen off the pipeline as a result of the revision of the agreement with Alnylam. All four assets are on the list of dropped drugs Sanofi included in its latest quarterly results.
New casualties disclosed in the filing include GZ402668 and isatuximab. Sanofi is closing in on the end of a single-ascending dose study of GZ402668 in patients with progressive multiple sclerosis. But the pipeline update states Sanofi won’t be taking the anti-CD52 monoclonal antibody forward in the relapsing form of the disease.
Anti-CD38 drug isatuximab has reached the end of the line as a monotherapy treatment of acute lymphoblastic lymphoma. A suite of clinical trials of the candidate in other indications will continue.
By Nick Paul Taylor
Source: Fierce Biotech
CureVac and the University of Texas’s MD Anderson Cancer Center have announced a co-development and licensing agreement to develop novel messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA)-based cancer vaccines. The strategic collaboration will focus on the development of differentiated cancer vaccine candidates in selected haematological and solid tumour indications with high unmet medical needs.
FUJIFILM Corporation is planning to invest $1.2 billion to expand the planned FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies manufacturing facility in Holly Springs, North Carolina, US. This news follows the organisation’s announcement of a $2 billion investment in the facility in March 2021. This additional financial boost totals the investment to over $3.2 billion, FUJIFILM confirmed.
Sanofi’s global restructuring and downsizing is now fully underway, with layoffs stretching to the company’s Belgian offices. Belgian newspaper De Tijd reports that 67 employees have been laid off at a site in Ghent and 32 jobs are on the chopping block at Sanofi’s Belgium HQ in Diegem.
