
As anti-inflammatory space heats up, Pfizer spins JAK, TYK2 drugs into new startup
Having bet heavily on JAK inhibitors — putting together a portfolio anchored by Xeljanz and now Cibinqo — Pfizer is getting some help to develop its next such candidate.
But we don’t know who the partner is just yet.
In prepared remarks during Pfizer’s Q3 earnings call, CEO Albert Bourla revealed to investors that the company has exclusively licensed brepocitinib, a Phase II dual JAK/TYK2 inhibitor, to “a new company formed in collaboration with a partner that has a proven track record in late-stage inflammation and immunology drug development.”
That new company, which also got TYK2 inhibitor PF-06826647 from the deal, will take charge of all future development decisions. In return, Pfizer kept a 25% stake and certain ex-US commercial rights to the two assets.
While drugs that block Janus kinase have proven effective at tamping down a range of inflammatory conditions, they’ve triggered alarming safety issues. In September, the FDA concluded that Pfizer’s Xeljanz and Xeljanz XR are tied to an increased risk of serious heart-related events such as heart attack or stroke, cancer, blood clots and death — and warned that other JAK inhibitors may carry similar risks.
Pfizer is still in talks with the FDA to finalize the label update resulting from the review, according to Bourla.
“Overall, we remain confident in the importance of the JAK inhibitor class for appropriate patients with inflammatory diseases, and we are pursuing a variety of options for advancing additional JAK inhibitor assets within our pipeline,” he said.
Often positioned side by side with the JAK3 inhibitor ritlecitinib on pipeline slides, brepocitinib is being tested in Phase II trials for multiple diseases, including hidradenitis suppurativa, ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease, vitiligo, psoriatic arthritis, alopecia areata, lupus, atopic dermatitis and psoriasis.
PF-06826647 appears more early-stage in comparison, showing up only in two Phase II trials at the most recent pipeline update.
If TYK2 sounds familiar, that’s likely because Bristol Myers Squibb has made plenty of noise about being the leader in the space with deucravacitinib — even at the alleged peril of partners at Nimbus. Even though Bristol Myers flopped its first test in ulcerative colitis, the company remains steadfast in its trek toward approval.
For Pfizer, Bourla described the deal as a way to allocate proper resources to those two programs, “while allowing Pfizer to focus on diversifying its pipeline.”