Hav­ing suf­fered a string of pipeline set­backs in re­cent years, In­cyte is rein­vig­o­rat­ing its R&D prospects with a pact to de­vel­op and mar­ket Mor­phoSys’ an­ti-CD19 an­ti­body taf­a­sita­m­ab, a drug be­ing primed as an al­lur­ing al­ter­na­tive to the ex­ist­ing CAR-T ther­a­pies Kym­ri­ah and Yescar­ta in pa­tients with a com­mon, treat­ment-re­sis­tant form of non-Hodgkin’s lym­phoma.

Un­der the deal, Mor­phoSys and In­cyte will co-com­mer­cial­ize taf­a­sita­m­ab in the Unit­ed States, while In­cyte has ex­clu­sive com­mer­cial­iza­tion rights out­side the re­gion. For these rights, In­cyte is giv­ing Mor­phoSys an up­front pay­ment of $750 mil­lion as well as mak­ing an eq­ui­ty in­vest­ment worth $150 mil­lion in the com­pa­ny. The Ger­man drug­mak­er is al­so el­i­gi­ble to re­ceive mile­stone pay­ments of up to $1.1 bil­lion, in ad­di­tion to roy­al­ties.

Mor­phoSys ex­pects the FDA to make its de­ci­sion on taf­a­sita­m­ab, or MOR208, for use in pa­tients with re­lapsed or re­frac­to­ry dif­fuse large B-cell lym­phoma (DL­B­CL) by mid-2020.

The ap­pli­ca­tion to mar­ket the drug was based on da­ta that showed taf­a­sita­m­ab, in com­bi­na­tion with lenalido­mide, in­duced me­di­an pro­gres­sion-free sur­vival of 12.1 months, with a me­di­an du­ra­tion of re­sponse at 21.7 months. The over­all re­sponse rate among 80 pa­tients was 60%, with a for­mi­da­ble 43% com­plete re­sponse rate.

It will com­pete with No­var­tis’ Kym­ri­ah — which se­cured ap­proval for DL­B­CL in 2018 based on an over­all re­sponse rate of 50%, and a com­plete re­sponse rate of 32% in 68 evalu­able pa­tients — al­though its adop­tion has been plagued by man­u­fac­tur­ing prob­lems, mak­ing way for Gilead’s Yescar­ta to deep­er pen­e­trate the CAR-T mar­ket. Taf­a­sita­m­ab — which has been be­stowed with the FDA’s break­through ther­a­py sta­tus — is a gar­den va­ri­ety an­ti­body un­like the two CAR-T ther­a­pies, which re­quire an elab­o­rate per­son­al­ized man­u­fac­tur­ing process (cells are iso­lat­ed from the pa­tient, ma­nip­u­lat­ed in the lab by adding chimeric anti­gen re­cep­tors to di­rect T cells to snuff out can­cer cells and then re-in­fused in­to the pa­tient).

The two part­ners are al­so plan­ning to co-de­vel­op taf­a­sita­m­ab in oth­er DL­B­CL in­di­ca­tions, as well as fol­lic­u­lar lym­phoma (FL), mar­gin­al zone lym­phoma (MZL) and chron­ic lym­pho­cyt­ic leukemia (CLL).

In 2019, Mor­phoSys saw some top man­age­ment changes and some re­or­ga­ni­za­tion as the com­pa­ny pre­pared for taf­a­sita­m­ab’s loom­ing ap­proval. When the com­pa­ny’s 17-year vet­er­an Markus En­zel­berg­er de­part­ed from his post as chief sci­en­tif­ic of­fi­cer, the com­pa­ny’s re­search arm was merged in­to the de­vel­op­ment di­vi­sion un­der chief Malte Pe­ters. CEO Si­mon Mo­roney al­so un­veiled plans he would step aside — he was re­placed by Jean-Paul Kress, the for­mer CEO of Boston’s Syn­tim­mune, which was swal­lowed by Alex­ion.

The Mor­phoSys deal is key for In­cyte — ear­li­er this month the drug­mak­er’s ex­per­i­men­tal itac­i­tinib failed a piv­otal study, dubbed GRAV­I­TAS-301, in first-line acute graft vs host dis­ease.

“While itac­i­tinib did not rep­re­sent a ma­jor fun­da­men­tal dri­ver of val­ue in our mod­el, ~ $5/share, we be­lieve the fail­ure of GRAV­I­TAS-301, which fol­lows three pri­or high pro­file pipeline dis­ap­point­ments in four years (Jakafi in sol­id tu­mors, epaca­do­stat, and Olu­mi­ant), may lead some in­vestors to ques­tion the com­pa­ny’s abil­i­ty to con­sis­tent­ly gen­er­ate val­ue from R&D in­vest­ment,” SVB Leerink An­drew Berens wrote in a note in ear­ly Jan­u­ary.

In­cyte for years has leaned on its flag­ship JAK in­hibitor Jakafi, which se­cured about $1.2 bil­lion in sales in the first three quar­ters of 2019.

“We be­lieve this is a sol­id deal, as the tafa pro­file ap­pears to be the best-in-class CD19/CD20 for the treat­ment of R/R dif­fuse large B-cell lym­phoma (DL­B­CL), giv­en the to­tal­i­ty da­ta of ef­fi­ca­cy, safe­ty, and treat­ment con­ve­nience. While the deal could so­lid­i­fy IN­CY’s pipeline and fur­ther di­ver­si­fy rev­enue, we be­lieve the deal may dis­ap­point some in­vestors who are look­ing for a trans­for­ma­tive deal to strate­gi­cal­ly ex­tend the Jakafi in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty run­way be­yond 2027,” Berens wrote in a note on Mon­day.

“Giv­en the SVB Leerink’s es­ti­mate of taf­a­sita­m­ab’s world­wide peak sales of ~$1bn, we al­so think deal might not be suf­fi­cient to po­ten­tial­ly re­place Jakafi rev­enue for the long term. Al­so, due to the fi­nan­cial terms, it is un­clear to us when the com­pa­ny would be ca­pa­ble of do­ing a more trans­for­ma­tive deal.”

So­cial im­age: In­cyte, AP Im­ages

A lack of diversity in clinical trials has persisted despite decades of initiatives to try to turn the tide.

In a recent review of 17 years of clinical trials, drugmaker GSK found that there were some mismatches between the demographics of its US-based trials and how prevalent diseases were in those populations.

The results, the company says, will help GSK and others design studies that better represent epidemiological rates within races and ethnicities.

Following a promise last year to go “big and fast in breast cancer,” Gilead has secured a win for Trodelvy in the most common form.

The drug was approved to treat HR-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer patients who’ve already received endocrine-based therapy and at least two other systemic therapies for metastatic cancer, Gilead announced on Friday.

Trodelvy won its first indication in metastatic triple-negative breast cancer back in 2020, and has since added urothelial cancer to the list. HR-positive HER2-negative breast cancer accounts for roughly 70% of new breast cancer cases worldwide per year, according to senior VP of oncology clinical development Bill Grossman, and many patients develop resistance to endocrine-based therapies or worsen on chemotherapy.