Bristol Myers Squibb Terminates Cancer Drug Development Program With Agenus

In a regulatory filing Friday, Agenus Inc AGEN revealed Bristol Myers Squibb & Co BMY terminated a license, development, and commercialization agreement forged in 2021.

The company said that as part of a broader strategic realignment of their development pipeline, which involves other licensed products, Bristol Myers Squibb is returning AGEN1777, a TIGIT bispecific antibody, to Agenus and voluntarily terminating the BMS License Agreement, effective as of January 26, 2025.

Related: Agenus Faces Regulatory and Financial Challenges: Analyst Downgrades Stock Pending Trial Clarity.

Most recently, Roche Holdings AG's RHHBY TIGIT drug, tiragolumab, failed in Phase 3 SKYSCRAPER-02 study in extensive-stage small-cell lung cancer (ES-SCLC) and did not meet its co-primary endpoint of progression-free survival.

In August last year, Roche was made aware of the inadvertent disclosure of the second interim analysis of the Phase 3 SKYSCRAPER-01 study, evaluating tiragolumab plus Tecentriq (atezolizumab) versus Tecentriq alone as an initial (first-line) treatment for PD-L1-high locally advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer.

In May, Merck & Co Inc MRK discontinued the vibostolimab, its TIGIT drug, and pembrolizumab coformulation arm of the Phase 3 KeyVibe-010 trial. 

Results from Merck's Phase 2 KeyVibe-002 trial of vibostolimab/pembrolizumab combo, with or without docetaxel for metastatic non-small cell lung cancer with progressive disease after treatment with immunotherapy and platinum-doublet chemotherapy, did not show an improvement in median PFS compared to docetaxel alone.

Bristol Myers acquired AGEN1777 in 2021 by paying Agenus $200 million in cash.

Price Action: AGEN stock is down 7.10% at $5.23 at last check Monday.

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