TIGITs took another tumble with GSK plc’s decision to end a development program and a collaboration with Iteos Therapeutics Inc. New top-line results from a phase II study in non-small-cell lung cancer using belrestotug, an anti-TIGIT monoclonal antibody, were disappointing so the companies are calling it a day.
Beigene Ltd. said it is shutting down development of its anti-TIGIT antibody, ociperlimab (BGB-A1217), after the humanized IgG1-variant monoclonal antibody failed a phase III trial in lung cancer. The move is one of many in a string of anti-TIGIT immunotherapy failures.
Beigene Ltd. said it is shutting down development of its anti-TIGIT antibody, ociperlimab (BGB-A1217), after the humanized IgG1-variant monoclonal antibody failed a phase III trial in lung cancer. The move is one of many in a string of anti-TIGIT immunotherapy failures.
Bristol Myers Squibb Co. (BMS) has terminated its $1.3 billion-plus deal for Agenus Inc.’s anti-TIGIT bispecific antibody AGEN-1777 as part of a promised belt-tightening. In May 2021, BMS paid Agenus a non-refundable $200 million up-front payment in cash for the licensing, manufacturing and commercialization agreement, then a $20 million milestone payment in December 2021 and another clinical milestone payment in January 2024 for $25 million.
As developers in the oft-troubled TIGIT class forge onward, Roche Holding AG’s Genentech unit provided an unfavorable update July 5 on the phase II/III Skyscraper-06 study testing anti-TIGIT candidate tiragolumab plus Tecentriq (atezolizumab) and chemotherapy vs. Keytruda (pembrolizumab, Merck & Co. Inc.) and chemo as first-line treatment for non-squamous non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
Citing a high rate of patients leaving the study, Merck & Co. Inc. has discontinued the anti-TIGIT antibody vibostolimab and the anti-PD-1 Keytruda (pembrolizumab) portion of it phase III Keyvibe-10 trial as an adjuvant treatment for those with resected high-risk melanoma.
The narrative of TIGIT-targeting immunotherapy development, beset by negative news in recent months, has found a positive plotline again, thanks to what Roche Holding AG referred to as “an inadvertent disclosure” of a second interim analysis from the phase III Skyscraper-01 study testing anti-TIGIT candidate tiragolumab with anti-PD-L1 antibody Tecentriq (atezolizumab) in non-small-cell lung cancer.
From Roche Holding AG to Novartis AG, bad news abounds for anti-TIGIT immunotherapies. In an SEC filing on July 11, Chinese oncology R&D firm Beigene Ltd. and Basel, Switzerland-based Novartis announced an end to their $1 billion deal to develop the former’s TIGIT immunotherapy ociperlimab, with the checkpoint inhibitor going back to Beigene.
From Roche Holding AG to Novartis AG, bad news abounds for anti-TIGIT immunotherapies. In an SEC filing on July 11, Chinese oncology R&D firm Beigene Ltd. and Basel, Switzerland-based Novartis announced an end to their $1 billion deal to develop the former’s TIGIT immunotherapy ociperlimab, with the checkpoint inhibitor going back to Beigene.
B cells that expressed a constellation of checkpoint inhibitors could be spurred into antitumor activity by deleting or blocking the checkpoint molecule T-cell immunoglobulin and mucin domain 1 (TIM-1). The findings, which were published online in Nature on June 21, 2023, suggest ways to bring B cells into the antitumor fight. More broadly, Lloyd Bod told BioWorld, his laboratory aims to “break the dogma that B cells only produce antibodies.”
