Six days af­ter Genen­tech rolled out dis­ap­point­ing ear­ly-stage da­ta on its IDO1 drug GDC-0919 (navox­i­mod) in-li­censed from NewLink Ge­net­ics, the big Roche sub­sidiary is kick­ing it out of the pipeline.

NewLink $NLNK an­nounced that Genen­tech has hand­ed back all rights to the drug, though its dis­cov­ery part­ner­ship con­tin­ues. The can­cer drug spe­cial­ist is walk­ing away from a $1 bil­lion-plus deal that was inked with $150 mil­lion up­front.

NewLink’s shares cratered once again on the news, falling 31% by mid-morn­ing.

This is the lat­est in a se­ries of gut punch­es to NewLink, which was sent reel­ing last year and was forced to re­struc­ture in the wake of the fail­ure of its pan­cre­at­ic can­cer vac­cine. IDO, a hot tick­et in biotech now with In­cyte $IN­CY ev­i­dent­ly well in the lead, was sup­posed to be its path back.

The writ­ing, though, was on the wall when in­ves­ti­ga­tors re­port­ed that GDC-0919 de­liv­ered on­ly a 10% over­all re­sponse rate in all tu­mor types in a com­bi­na­tion study with Tecen­triq — a PD-L1 check­point that is al­so un­der a cloud since the big Phase III fail­ure in blad­der can­cer. Genen­tech is not known for pur­su­ing fu­tile work in can­cer.

NewLink was al­so forced to con­cede 6 days ago that its in-house IDO in­hibitor in­dox­i­mod failed a Phase II study for breast can­cer, mak­ing this a very bad, no good, aw­ful week for the biotech.

Charles Link Jr.

“We are ob­vi­ous­ly dis­ap­point­ed in this de­ci­sion,” said Charles J. Link, Jr., CEO of NewLink Ge­net­ics, in a state­ment. “We re­main com­mit­ted to ad­vanc­ing our IDO path­way in­hibitor in­dox­i­mod, which con­tin­ues to gen­er­ate ex­cit­ing da­ta in com­bi­na­tion with an­ti-PD-1 agents, can­cer vac­cines, and chemother­a­py in mul­ti­ple can­cer types in­clud­ing melanoma, prostate can­cer, acute myeloid leukemia, and pan­cre­at­ic can­cer.”

The Endpoints News team is continuing to track IPO filings for 2021, and we’ve designed a new tracker page for the effort.

Check it out here: Biopharma IPOs 2021 from Endpoints News

You’ll be able to find all the biotechs that have filed and priced so far this year, sortable by quarter and listed by newest first. As of the time of publishing on Feb. 25, there have already been 16 biotechs debuting on Nasdaq so far this year, with an additional four having filed their S-1 paperwork.

Roche and Genentech have committed $53 million to back a 10-year quest aimed at going back to the drawing board to use new technology and fresh scientific insights to generate a pipeline of drugs for neurological diseases.

Researchers from both Roche and its big South San Francisco hub — mixing teams from gRED and pRED this time — will mix it up with the scientists drawn together for the Weill Neurohub — formed in 2019 as a joint research partnership involving UCSF, Berkeley and the University of Washington — in an exploration of the field to develop new therapies for some of the toughest diseases in drug R&D: Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, ALS and autism.

On the hunt for a novel competitor to Sanofi and Regeneron’s Dupixent in severe asthma, Amgen and AstraZeneca posted “exciting” results from their next-gen antibody late last year. Now, the partners are showing their hands, and the results look good enough for approval.

Amgen and AstraZeneca’s tezepelumab plus standard of care cut the rate of severe asthma attacks by 56% at the one-year mark compared with SOC alone, according to full data from the Phase III NAVIGATOR study presented Friday at the virtual American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology meeting. And those significant results were consistent regardless of patients’ baseline eosinophil counts.

S&P Global has taken a look at the dominant forces shaping the pharma market and come to the conclusion that there will be more downgrades than upgrades in 2021 — the 8th straight year of steady decline.

But it’s not all bad news. Some things are looking up, and there’s still plenty of money to be made in an industry that enjoys a 30% to 40% profit margin, once you factor in steep R&D expenses.