Neu­ro­tox­i­c­i­ty kills a CAR-T ri­val pushed by J&J, Macro­Gen­ics in $700M deal

Back in late 2014, Macro­Gen­ics $MGNX CEO Scott Koenig tout­ed the po­ten­tial of his bis­pe­cif­ic CD19/CD3 drug for B-cell ma­lig­nan­cies, claim­ing MGD011 (du­vor­tux­izum­ab) looked like it could beat the CAR-T drugs that were be­gin­ning to gath­er rapt at­ten­tion. And J&J bought in, claim­ing world­wide rights in a deal launched with $125 mil­lion in cash and $575 mil­lion in mile­stones.

To­day, the drug is like­ly dead and J&J is throw­ing in the tow­el on the Phase I af­ter pa­tients in the study ex­pe­ri­enced neu­ro­tox­i­c­i­ty. Iron­i­cal­ly, the smash up oc­curred the same week CAR-T was her­ald­ed for an his­toric first ap­proval, with most an­a­lysts ready to ap­plaud the cell ther­a­py’s po­ten­tial as a game chang­er for B-cell ma­lig­nan­cies.

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