Glax­o­SmithK­line's $4B bis­pe­cif­ic can­cer drug al­liance with Mer­ck KGaA hit by big set­back with a PhI­II fail­ure on NSCLC

Close to 2 years ago, GSK’s R&D team ea­ger­ly agreed to pay up to $4 bil­lion-plus to al­ly it­self with Mer­ck KGaA on a mid-stage bis­pe­cif­ic called bin­tra­fusp al­fa, which in­trigued them with the com­bi­na­tion of a TGF-β trap with the an­ti-PD-L1 mech­a­nism in one fu­sion pro­tein.

But to­day the Ger­man phar­ma com­pa­ny says that their lead study on lung can­cer was a bust, as in­de­pen­dent mon­i­tors said there was no rea­son to be­lieve that the ex­per­i­men­tal drug — tar­get­ing PD-L1/TGF-Be­ta — could beat Keytru­da.

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