Bristol Myers Squibb is walking away from its $650 million bet on an Eisai antibody-drug conjugate (ADC). The Japanese drugmaker said BMS decided to end the co-development agreement as part of an ongoing portfolio prioritization push.
BMS partnered with Eisai in 2021, paying $450 million upfront for rights to MORAb-202. Eisai, which had phase 1 data from 22 patients at the time of the deal, conjugated an anti-folate receptor alpha (FRα) antibody and anticancer agent to create the candidate. BMS paid the upfront, plus $200 million in R&D support, and dangled $2.5 billion in milestones to land the deal.
Three years later, BMS has decided the candidate is no longer part of its plans. The Big Pharma had joint rights to MORAb-202 in markets including the U.S. and Europe, plus exclusive rights in other parts of the world. Eisai has regained full rights to the ADC, which is now called farletuzumab ecteribulin (FZEC), and plans to refund “a part of the unused portion of the $200 million” BMS paid to support R&D costs.
The Japanese drugmaker said it will “accelerate the development of the agent as a high priority.” BMS began two phase 2 trials, one in ovarian, peritoneal and fallopian tube cancers and another in non-small cell lung cancer, in 2022. Both studies have passed their estimated primary completion dates but are still listed as recruiting on ClinicalTrials.gov. BMS cut its enrollment targets and dropped a dose in both trials.
The indications targeted in the phase 2 trial reflect evidence that FRα is highly expressed in patients with certain types of solid tumors. Using an antibody to direct a cytotoxic payload to those targets could drive the destruction of the tumors and spare healthy tissues. Eisai is also still running a phase 1/2 study in solid tumors that began in 2020.
Since striking the deal, BMS has seen ImmunoGen win approval for the rival FRα-directed ADC Elahere and sell up to AbbVie for $10.1 billion. Other companies are lining up to challenge Elahere. Genmab joined the chasing pack earlier this year when it agreed to buy ProfoundBio for $1.8 billion.
In April, BMS unveiled plans for a significant “pipeline rationalization” that would see the Big Pharma lay off over 2,000 staff this year and end work on about a dozen programs, including CTLA4- , SIRPα- and BET-targeting meds. “Throughout the year we'll continue to look at these same principles and see what else we need to take out from our pipeline and either externalize it or not be able to develop it further,” Chief Medical Officer Samit Hirawat, M.D., said at the time.