AstraZeneca has dropped the lead candidate from its $200 million buyout of Neogene Therapeutics as part of a wider cell therapy clearout.
When AstraZeneca scooped up the company back in 2022, Neogene’s most advanced asset was NT-125, which was designed to contain up to five distinct neoantigen-specific T-cell receptors per patient in a single cell product. The theory was that this approach could cut the risk of antigen escape and trigger deep, durable clinical responses.
AstraZeneca has since been evaluating NT-125 in a phase 1 trial of 42 patients with various cancers, including non-small cell lung cancer, colorectal adenocarcinoma, and head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. But the company revealed in its second-quarter earnings release that it has ended the trial “due to strategic portfolio prioritization.”
When asked by Fierce Biotech how AstraZeneca views the acquisition of Neogene in hindsight, the pharma's chief financial officer Aradhana Sarin said the company considers that deal “was very much worth it.”
“In addition to some of those assets ... we also gained capabilities with Neogene in terms of talent as well as manufacturing,” Sarin added on an earnings call Tuesday morning.
NT-125 was joined on the cell therapy scrap heap by two armored CAR-Ts—a term for CAR-Ts engineered to express additional proteins alongside the chimeric antigen receptor. One of these is AZD5851, a GPC3-directed CAR-T that uses AstraZeneca’s transforming growth factor-beta receptor II (TGFβRII) dominant negative armoring platform.
The company had been evaluating AZD5851 in a phase 1/2 study of 94 patients with GPC3-positive advanced or recurrent hepatocellular carcinoma, but it sounds like the therapy has fallen victim to the same portfolio prioritization.
The final med that AstraZeneca is discontinuing is AZD6422. The armored CAR-T, which targets CLDN18.2, was being tested in a phase 1 study of 96 patients with advanced or metastatic CLDN18.2-positive gastrointestinal tumors.
Data from the trial read out in the second quarter, according to AstraZeneca’s documents. It doesn’t sound like the results were good enough, with the company explaining that it has discontinued the program “due to efficacy.”
While AstraZeneca may have relieved itself of three cell therapies today, the company’s wider push into the space shows no signs of slowing down. So far this year, the pharma has become an in vivo cell therapy player via a $1 billion deal to acquire EsoBiotec and its lentiviral vector platform, as well as opening a $300 million cell therapy manufacturing facility in Rockville, Maryland.
The pharma’s current cell therapy pipeline is led by a BCMA and CD19 dual-targeting CAR-T for multiple myeloma acquired as part of 2023’s Gracell acquisition, and AstraZeneca name-checked cell therapies along with radioconjugates in this morning’s earnings release as examples of the R&D areas it has been specifically investing in.
When asked by Fierce what this morning's three discontinuations say about AstraZeneca's broader cell therapy strategy, CFO Sarin said the company is “looking at at all forms of cell therapy at present.“ This pipeline ranges from “more near-term” autologous cell therapies to “more risky” in vivo programs, she said.
“So we're looking at all the different possible modalities,” Sarin explained on the call. “Not everything will be ideal for every particular indication and it's possible that in vivo leapfrogs some of these, so we're investing in that as well.”