The clock ticks on for Janux

2025 ended with disappointment for Janux’s lead asset, JANX007, and still no news about its second clinical hope, JANX008, so it’s of some solace that a collaboration with Bristol Myers Squibb sent Janux’s shares up 14% on Thursday. That’s in spite of the scant detail revealed about the tie-up, said to be worth “up to $50m in up-front and near-term milestone payments”. Nothing is disclosed about either the target(s) of any projects to be developed or their proposed modality. BMS thus becomes the second big pharma group, after Merck & Co, to endorse Janux’s masked therapeutic technology, a fact that will give some comfort investors nursing 12-month share price losses of 65%. But this vague collaboration is a distraction from Janux’s more pressing problems, the biggest of which came in December when an update on the PSMA-targeting masked T-cell engager JANX007 showed just how cherrypicked initial data were; indeed, Janux already started work to improve on JANX007. Meanwhile, the anti-EGFR T-cell engager JANX008 was due an update last year after radio silence since an initial data report in May 2024, but 2025 came and went with nothing but a statement that dose-escalation had been completed, and expansion cohorts initiated.

Janux's clinical-stage portfolio

Source: OncologyPipeline.