AbbVie is paying Ichnos Glenmark Innovation (IGI) $700 million upfront for a next-generation rival to Johnson & Johnson’s Tecvayli, positioning the Big Pharma to advance a new option for multiple myeloma patients.
The deal gives AbbVie rights to ISB 2001, a trispecific antibody that targets CD38, BCMA and CD3. J&J’s Tecvayli, Pfizer’s Elrexfio and Regeneron’s Lynozyfic hit BCMA and CD3. Adding CD38 to the mix could boost binding to tumor cells with low expression of BCMA and stop cancers from becoming resistant by downregulating the antigens.
AbbVie has placed a high price on that potential, coughing up $700 million for a phase 1 candidate and offering up to $1.225 billion in development regulatory, and commercial milestones. In return, IGI has granted AbbVie rights to the trispecific across North America, Europe, Japan and Greater China.
IGI recently shared (PDF) phase 1 data on the trispecific in patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma. Almost half of the 35 patients had previously received a BCMA therapy. More than 40% of the patients had tried a T-cell directed therapy such as a BCMA bispecific. IGI reported a 79% response rate. Almost 30% of patients had a complete response.
No patients had dose-limiting toxicities. Sixty percent of patients had grade 3 or worse hematologic treatment-emergent adverse events. More than two-thirds of patients had cytokine release syndrome but all the cases were grade 1 or 2.
The data persuaded AbbVie to add ISB 2001 to its pipeline of trispecifics. AbbVie previously added to the pipeline in January when it offered Simcere Zaiming upward of $1 billion for another BCMA trispecific. The earlier agreement landed AbbVie rights to SIM0500, a trispecific antibody that targets GPRC5D, BCMA and CD3. J&J sells the GPRC5DxCD3 T-cell engager Talvey.
AbbVie CEO Rob Michael discussed multispecific molecules at a Goldman Sachs event in June, naming the modality as the focus of the company’s oncology dealmaking. The focus reflects AbbVie’s thinking about “the future pipeline in oncology that nicely complements the emerging pipeline we have across ADCs, bispecifics, from our internal pipeline and as well as the acquisition of ImmunoGen,” Michael said.