When the FDA ap­proved Blue­print’s first drug three months ago, they split their de­ci­sion. Ay­vak­it would be ap­proved for gas­troin­testi­nal stro­mal tu­mors (GIST) with a rare mu­ta­tion called PDGFRa. The oth­er half of their ap­pli­ca­tion for plain old fourth line GIST would have to wait. Reg­u­la­tors want­ed to know how the drug per­formed in a Phase III tri­al.

Re­sults are now in from that Phase III tri­al and they spelled a death-knell. In a study of 476 pa­tients with third or fourth line GIST, Ay­vak­it (avapri­tinib) per­formed worse on the pri­ma­ry end­point than the al­ready-ap­proved Bay­er GIST drug, re­go­rafenib. Pro­gres­sion-free sur­vival was 4.2 months, com­pared with 5.6 months for Ay­vak­it.

Jeff Al­bers

Blue­print’s drug did have a high­er re­sponse rate — 17% com­pared with 7% — but that ap­peared as lit­tle con­so­la­tion. The com­pa­ny is dis­con­tin­u­ing de­vel­op­ment of the drug for those pa­tients.

“We will con­tin­ue to ad­vance our pipeline with clear near-term pri­or­i­ties in sys­temic mas­to­cy­to­sis and RET-al­tered can­cers,” CEO Jeff Al­bers said in a state­ment.

The com­pa­ny’s stock $BPMC took a sig­nif­i­cant hit, falling 20% from $70.90 to $56.71, ef­fec­tive­ly eras­ing over $800 mil­lion in val­ue.

Cowen’s Marc Frahm sug­gest­ed, though, that this was an over­re­ac­tion, writ­ing in a note to in­vestors that “GIST was not the the­sis.” The drug could still be po­ten­tial­ly used off-la­bel in fourth line GIST, Frahm wrote, but they were still re­mov­ing 3rd and 4th line GIST from their fu­ture sales pro­jec­tions. Nev­er­the­less, he ar­gued the tri­al said lit­tle about Ay­vak­it’s po­ten­tial in sys­temic mas­to­cy­to­sis — a rare dis­ease where mast cells ac­cu­mu­late in or­gans — or, in com­bi­na­tion with an­oth­er ex­per­i­men­tal drug, in can­cers with RET mu­ta­tions.

“We have re­moved sales for the broad 3/4L GIST in­di­ca­tions but con­tin­ue to view BPMC shares as un­der­val­ued,” Frahm wrote, pric­ing them at $83.

An­drew Berens at SVB Leerink was less up­beat but echoed the call for cau­tion. The fail­ure will “fun­da­men­tal­ly hit” Blue­print, he said, but the greater po­ten­tial lay else­where.

“Over­all, we be­lieve that GIST is less im­por­tant to the BPMC the­sis and think that in­vestors are like­ly to step in af­ter this read­out for more long-term op­por­tu­ni­ties in RET-dri­ven ma­lig­nan­cies and sys­temic mas­to­cy­to­sis (SM) with up­com­ing cat­a­lyst,” Berens wrote.

Blue­print had been in a two-per­son race with De­ci­phera to get a drug ap­proved for GIST — a rare form of sar­co­ma in the di­ges­tive sys­tem — dri­ven by a mu­ta­tion to the platelet-de­rived growth al­pha gene, or PDGFRa. Ay­vak­it was ap­proved un­der ac­cel­er­at­ed ap­proval, while De­ci­phera awaits an Au­gust de­ci­sion date from the FDA. Both com­pa­nies are al­so pur­su­ing sys­temic mas­to­cy­to­sis and 2nd line GIST.

De­ci­phera does not have a tri­al for 3rd line GIST, but Berens said the com­pa­ny could ben­e­fit if on­col­o­gists de­cide to try their drug off-la­bel in that set­ting.

So­cial im­age: Jeff Al­bers, Blue­print CEO (CN­BC)

After much debate, the US government is now calling for a deadline extension to discuss a controversial potential IP waiver for Covid-19 diagnostics and therapeutics.

Over the last five months, the Office of the United States Trade Representative said it has consulted with members of Congress, public health advocates, organized labor groups, academics, think tanks, companies and trade associations on the WTO’s recent TRIPS agreement, which established a 5-year waiver of certain patent requirements on Covid-19 vaccines.

HotSpot Therapeutics has managed to gain some steam financially in the past few years, as the company wrangled several multi-million dollar raises. But its latest deal not only puts more cash into its pockets, it also connects with a major name in pharma.

On Tuesday, AbbVie and HotSpot announced they have entered an “exclusive” global collaboration, with the option to license HotSpot’s IRF5 program, which is designed to treat autoimmune diseases. The deal will see AbbVie hand HotSpot $40 million upfront, with the biotech eligible to receive $295 million in “option fees” and R&D milestones.