German biotech Medigene saw its shares drag down 7% into the red Thursday after it decided to cull one of its T-cell receptor modified (TCR-T) cancer assets after delays by COVID-19 restrictions hampered its efforts.
The therapy, MDG1021, which targets the antigen HA-1, works as a TCR-T immunotherapy and was being tested in patients suffering from relapsed or persistent blood cancers after allogeneic (non-self) hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, an area with high unmet medical need.
It was originally licensed from the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) in the Netherlands at the end of 2018. But now the company, which is looking to focus on solid tumors, said the development program of the therapy “is to be discontinued.”
It also laid blame at the door of COVID-19, as well as its refocus. “We believe the challenges of recruiting patients for this program have been exacerbated under the prevailing pandemic conditions and that this situation is unlikely to improve substantially over the coming months, leading us to this difficult decision,” explained Kai Pinkernell, M.D., chief medical officer and chief development officer at Medigene.
“We thank our collaborators and their teams for all their efforts and contributions despite the challenging circumstances,” Pinkernell added. It will now switch focus to its solid tumor TCR-T, known as MDG10XX.
The company added in a statement that it was still in talks with the LUMC to see whether it will take over the study and the rights back for the drug.
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“The action taken to discontinue MDG1021 underscores our aim to focus our development efforts on advancing functionally enhanced TCR-T cells as treatments for solid cancer indications within our MDG10XX program,” said Dolores Schendel, Ph.D., chief scientific officer and CEO of the biotech.
“On the basis of patient numbers and unmet medical needs, we believe this is the most significant commercial opportunity for our clearly differentiated technologies including our PD1-41BB switch receptor and our non-mutated, highly-specific TCRs. We look forward to providing updates on progress in our other programs in due course."