Re­gen­eron leaps in­to the block­buster race to de­vel­op off-the-shelf im­mune cell can­cer ther­a­pies

A year ago, Sanofi agreed to pay Re­gen­eron $1.8 bil­lion-plus to part­ner on its an­ti-PD1 check­point pro­gram. To­day, biotech heavy­weight Re­gen­eron is jump­ing in­to CAR-Ts and TCR tech, de­ter­mined to leap di­rect­ly in­to a block­buster brawl with a plan to emerge as a leader in the fast-grow­ing im­muno-on­col­o­gy field. And it’s made the lat­est in a hand­ful of rare biotech deals to part­ner on the tech­nol­o­gy it needs.

Re­gen­eron se­lect­ed the start­up Adicet Bio for its col­lab­o­ra­tion. A new face in im­muno-on­col­o­gy, the biotech popped up on­ly last Jan­u­ary with a hefty $51 mil­lion A round to get start­ed. But it’s helmed by Aya Jakobovits, the found­ing pres­i­dent and CEO of Kite Phar­ma, a leader in de­vel­op­ing per­son­al­ized CAR-Ts.

Aya Jakobovits, Adicet Bio

If it was any oth­er biotech oth­er than Re­gen­eron, the news might spur a lit­tle mock­ing from some of the side­line ob­servers who have been watch­ing the fron­trun­ners present a slate of top per­son­al­ized CAR-Ts down the fi­nal stretch to a like­ly near-term set of ap­provals. It may ap­pear late to the par­ty, but Re­gen­eron is a top in­dus­try R&D play­er; a ma­jor biotech out­fit that is well fi­nanced, re­lent­less­ly fo­cused with a track record that now in­cludes a list of ma­jor drugs that are ei­ther on the mar­ket or close to it. And it’s look­ing to catch the next wave form­ing off­shore of I/O.

Jakobovits gets a mod­est $25 mil­lion up­front to get start­ed on en­gi­neer­ing a pipeline of im­mune cells with chimeric anti­gen re­cep­tors and T cell re­cep­tors, a one-two ap­proach aimed at ze­ro­ing in on both sur­face anti­gens found specif­i­cal­ly on tar­get­ed can­cer cells as well as in­tra­cel­lu­lar tar­gets. There’s a sup­port pack­age for re­search as well, with ad­di­tion­al funds to back up the col­lab­o­ra­tion, but no one is dis­clos­ing any of that this morn­ing.

Both com­pa­nies em­pha­size that they’re con­cen­trat­ing on off-the-shelf drugs that will be pri­mar­i­ly fo­cused on sol­id tu­mors, the new new thing in im­muno-on­col­o­gy where first-gen hema­to­log­i­cal im­munother­a­pies have en­coun­tered hard bar­ri­ers.

“There’s a lot of room left to wind up as a leader,” says Michael Aber­man, the strat­e­gy ex­ec at Re­gen­eron. His com­pa­ny wasn’t the first to tack­le check­points, nor the first in cell ther­a­pies. But “it’s very ear­ly in the first wave to know how that’s go­ing to play out. There’s a lot of chal­lenges left ahead and a lot of op­por­tu­ni­ties. And we’re talk­ing a nov­el ap­proach.”

The pact with Re­gen­eron cov­ers a “broad pipeline,” Jakobovits tells End­points, em­pha­siz­ing that the key to cre­at­ing a safe, ef­fec­tive im­mune cell ther­a­py is be­ing “spe­cif­ic to the tu­mor tar­get.” But Jakobovits, who set up the com­pa­ny as a part­ner at Or­bimed, is very care­ful to stay in­side some nar­row bound­aries on ex­plain­ing ex­act­ly what dis­tin­guish­es their work.

I/O in­vest­ment spe­cial­ist Brad Lon­car says the deal high­lights some key points. Re­gen­eron, he says:

1) Sees the promise in cell ther­a­py, which not all com­pa­nies do. For ex­am­ple, Gilead’s CEO said the idea makes him very un­com­fort­able. Many bears be­lieve it will nev­er be com­mer­cial­ly vi­able. So for a com­pa­ny with the sci­en­tif­ic cred­i­bil­i­ty of Re­gen­eron to take a small dive in says some­thing.

2) Un­der­stands that it’s too late to be a play­er in the au­tol­o­gous (per­son­al­ized) ap­proach or doesn’t be­lieve it can be eco­nom­i­cal­ly vi­able. All of the com­mer­cial op­por­tu­ni­ty has al­ready been tak­en up by ex­ist­ing play­ers.

3) Be­lieves the off the shelf ap­proach is sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly vi­able, which not every­one does.

I’d say the main point is that it’s a good sign for the whole field of cell ther­a­py when a com­pa­ny as cred­i­ble as Re­gen­eron feels like they need to be a play­er in this area. Most peo­ple don’t ap­pre­ci­ate the fact that cell ther­a­py is ba­si­cal­ly ver­sion 1.0 right now and there are many im­prove­ments that will be made over the com­ing years. It has the chance to be very spe­cial and I’m sure Re­gen­eron sees that.

A tech­nol­o­gy arms race of a kind has tak­en shape as var­i­ous com­pa­nies sort out how off-the-shelf ther­a­pies can even­tu­al­ly re­place the first gen­er­a­tion lab-craft­ed per­son­al­ized ther­a­pies that ex­tract cells from pa­tients, reengi­neer them in­to can­cer treat­ments and the in­fuse them back in­to pa­tients. Just days ago Jakobovits’s for­mer com­pa­ny Kite ex­e­cut­ed a deal with UCLA for al­lo­gene­ic tech from the lab of Gay M. Crooks.

Re­gen­eron’s not-so-se­cret weapon in the new front on can­cer in­cludes its unique Ve­locIm­mune mouse mod­els, which are de­scribed as “the largest mam­malian ge­net­ic en­gi­neer­ing project ever ac­com­plished.” It helped them de­vel­op REGN1979, a bis­pe­cif­ic an­ti­body ther­a­py that R&D chief George Yan­copou­los has high­light­ed ex­cit­ed­ly for its abil­i­ty to tar­get the B cell mark­er, CD20, and the CD3 com­po­nent of the T cell re­cep­tor, which trig­gers redi­rect­ed killing of B cells. Its an­ti-PD-1 an­ti­body is REGN2810. Any tar­get­ing mol­e­cules that come out of this new col­lab­o­ra­tion can be redi­rect­ed in­to any oth­er pro­grams Re­gen­eron has, in­clud­ing its pact with Sanofi.

Re­gen­eron doesn’t do many of these pacts, says Aber­man. There was the In­tel­lia deal back in April that brings CRISPR-Cas9 gene edit­ing tech, Avalanche’s gene ther­a­py pact, and now Adicet. But they ex­pect a lot out of the few deals they do with the se­lect biotechs they want to work with.

For Jakobovits, the deal al­so al­lows her to push the quick ex­pan­sion of he new biotech. The staff of 14 is slat­ed to dou­ble, with ad­di­tion­al in­put com­ing from her Is­raeli sub­sidiary.

Has the mo­ment fi­nal­ly ar­rived for val­ue-based health­care?

RBC Capital Markets’ Healthcare Technology Analyst, Sean Dodge, spotlights a new breed of tech-enabled providers who are rapidly transforming the way clinicians deliver healthcare, and explores the key question: can this accelerating revolution overturn the US healthcare system?

Key points

Tech-enabled healthcare providers are poised to help the US transition to value, not volume, as the basis for reward.
The move to value-based care has policy momentum, but is risky and complex for clinicians.
Outsourced tech specialists are emerging to provide the required expertise, while healthcare and tech are also converging through M&A.
Value-based care remains in its early stages, but the transition is accelerating and represents a huge addressable market.

Andy Plump, Takeda R&D chief (Jeff Rumans for Endpoints News)

What kind of PhI­Ib da­ta is worth $4B cash? Take­da’s Andy Plump has some thoughts on that

A few months back, when Takeda caused jaws to drop with its eye-watering $4 billion cash upfront for a mid-stage TYK2 drug from Nimbus, it had already taken a deep dive on the solid Phase IIb data Nimbus had assembled from its dose-ranging study in psoriasis.

Now, it’s rolling that data out, eager to demonstrate what inspired the global biopharma to go long in a neighboring, but new, disease arena for the pipeline. And the most avid students of the numbers will likely be at Bristol Myers Squibb, who will have a multi-year head start on pioneering the TYK2 space with Sotyktu (deucravacitinib) as Takeda makes its lunge for best-in-class status.

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No­vo Nordisk re­mains un­der UK scruti­ny as MHRA con­ducts its own re­view in 'in­cred­i­bly rare' case

The UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency is now reviewing Novo Nordisk’s marketing violation that resulted in its loss of UK trade group membership last week. Novo Nordisk was suspended on Thursday from the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) for two years after an investigation by its regulatory arm found the pharma broke its conduct rules.

MHRA said on Tuesday that its review of the Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority (PMCPA) investigation is standard practice. An MHRA spokesperson emphasized in an email to Endpoints News that the situation with Novo Nordisk is “incredibly rare” while also noting ABPI took “swift and proportionate action.”

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FDA in­di­cates will­ing­ness to ap­prove Bio­gen ALS drug de­spite failed PhI­II study

Ahead of Wednesday’s advisory committee hearing to discuss Biogen’s ALS drug tofersen, the FDA appeared open to approving the drug, newly released briefing documents show.

Citing the need for flexibility in a devastating disease like ALS, regulators signaled a willingness to consider greenlighting tofersen based on its effect on a certain protein associated with ALS despite a failed pivotal trial. The documents come after regulatory flexibility was part of the same rationale the agency expressed when approving an ALS drug last September from Amylyx Pharmaceuticals, indicating the FDA’s openness to approving new treatments for the disease.

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Vipin Garg, Altimmune CEO

Al­tim­mune’s shares halved af­ter in­ter­im look at PhII weight loss drug da­ta

Altimmune’s attempt to catch up to Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly’s GLP-1 drugs hit an investor snag Tuesday after the biotech shared interim Phase II weight loss data.

The Maryland biotech’s pemvidutide is a GLP-1/glucagon dual receptor agonist meant to activate GLP-1 receptors to squash appetite and glucagon to ramp up energy use. The 2.4 mg dose showed a placebo-adjusted weight loss of 9.7% at week 24 of 48, which Jefferies analysts said would be comparable to Novo Nordisk’s semaglutide (Wegovy) and Eli Lilly’s tirzepatide (Mounjaro).

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FDA warns Proc­ter & Gam­ble over NyQuil la­bel's in­gre­di­ent list­ings

The FDA on Tuesday released a warning letter sent earlier this month to the Mason, OH-based site of Procter & Gamble Manufactura, raising questions about the list of ingredients on the label and in the electronic filing.

The warning says that for P&G’s over-the-counter Vicks Nyquil Severe Hot Remedy Cold and Flu Plus Congestion, there’s a “mismatched” list of active ingredients between the labeling and the electronic listing file. The listing file for the active ingredients did not match the active ingredients in the electronic file.

FTC says patent bat­tle over Parkin­son's drug could have 'sig­nif­i­cant im­pli­ca­tion­s' for pa­tients

The Federal Trade Commission has gotten involved in a patent feud over Supernus’ Parkinson’s drug Apokyn, a case the agency said may have ‘‘significant implications” for patients who rely on the drug.

Sage Chemical won the first generic approval for its Apokyn formulation (also known as apomorphine hydrochloride injection) back in 2022. The non-ergoline dopamine agonist is approved to treat Parkinson’s symptoms during “off episodes,” such as difficulty moving, tremors and intense cramping. However, regulators specified that the approval pertained to the generic drug cartridges only, not the injector pen required for administration.

Growth hor­mone from No­vo Nordisk is in short­age over man­u­fac­tur­ing de­lays

Novo Nordisk’s growth hormone Norditropin is in shortage because of manufacturing delays, according to an FDA site that tracks drug shortages as well as the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists’ shortages list.

The FDA has shortages of the drug listed for its 5, 10, 15 and 30 mg doses, while the pharmacists’ group, also known as ASHP, reported shortages of the same doses, except for the 15 mg version.

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Harpreet Singh, Immatics CEO

Im­mat­ics an­nounces mul­ti­ple pipeline changes with lat­est fi­nan­cial re­sults

The T-cell biotech Immatics is looking to make some changes to its pipeline.

Immatics released its 2022 financial results on Tuesday and announced that it’s planning to discontinue its program for IMA201, an experimental cell therapy for solid tumors that express the antigens known as MAGE4/8. It plans to shift focus to IMA401, a TCR bispecific which goes after the same target.

The German-based biotech said it will treat the remaining patients enrolled in the program before the discontinuation. No other reasons were given for the discontinuation. Endpoints News reached out to Immatics for more details but did not receive a response by press time.

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