Roivant is putting its people at the top of Immunovant—and they have made an immediate mark on the biotech’s pipeline. Having previously planned to target 10 indications, Immunovant has narrowed its focus to six settings where it could start delivering potentially registrational data in 2027.
Immunovant split from Roivant in 2019 but has never achieved full independence. While Roivant’s bid to reacquire Immunovant in 2021 fell apart, Roivant remains Immunovant's largest shareholder.
That means the future of Roivant is tied to the success, or otherwise, of Immunovant’s attempts to break into the FcRn market amid competition from argenx, UCB and, if the FDA signs off on a pending filing, Johnson & Johnson.
Against that backdrop, Roivant has announced that its president and chief operating officer, Eric Venker, M.D., is taking over as CEO of Immunovant. Pete Salzmann, M.D., the former Immunovant CEO, has retired from the role. Renee Barnett has stepped down as chief financial officer at Immunovant. Tiago Girao, CFO in residence at Roivant, has taken over from Barnett.
Roivant announced the leadership changes alongside what it called “a broader strategic transition” at Immunovant to feature “increased Roivant alignment.” Under the new leadership, Immunovant will wrap up work on batoclimab, its first FcRn blocker, and ramp up development of IMVT-1402, its next-generation asset.
With Roivant tightening its grip on the biotech's purse strings, Immunovant has pulled back slightly from the broad R&D plan it sketched out last month. Back then, the company planned (PDF) to start trials in 10 indications by the end of March 2026.
The new R&D plan is focused (PDF) on generating data in six indications. With $825 million in the bank at the last count, Immunovant figures it has the cash to get through to key readouts in 2027.
The biotech expects its money to fund operations through a Graves’ disease trial readout for IMVT-1402 in 2027. In addition, difficult-to-treat rheumatoid arthritis and myasthenia gravis readouts are also scheduled for 2027. Immunovant is aiming to report potentially registrational data in Sjögren’s disease and chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy in 2028.
Meanwhile, with a proof-of-concept study in cutaneous lupus erythematosus (CLE) underway, the biotech is continuing to advance IMVT-1402 in a clutch of indications in which it believes the candidate can be first or best in class. Further broadening of the indication set will be closely evaluated, Roivant said.
Immunovant will face entrenched rivals if it wins approval in diseases such as myasthenia gravis, where argenx received FDA authorization in 2021, but the R&D plan also provides it with chances to be first in class. The biotech has identified Graves, rheumatoid arthritis and CLE as areas where it can get the jump on its competitors.