Genmab stops a mystery project

Not long after Genmab’s disappointment with its Darzalex follow-on erzotabart, the company has terminated another asset – this one much lower key. GEN1078 has been discontinued over toxicity concerns, according to a clinicaltrials.gov entry updated last week. The phase 1/2 study only began in January, and no details have been disclosed about the project’s mechanism of action. There are a few clues, however. The asset came via a discovery partnership with the antibody specialist OmniAb, and the study excluded patients previously treated with compounds hitting the same “targets” – so GEN1078 must be a bispecific. It might be a T-cell engager; the clinicaltrials.gov entry says patients shouldn’t have received “other T-cell activating surface marker”, and CD3 is one of these, though there are others. It’s possible also to say what GEN1078 doesn’t hit: prior treatment with anti-TIGIT, PD-(L)1, LAG3 and CTLA-4 drugs is allowed. GEN1078 is also unlikely to act against the various targets already represented in Genmab’s pipeline. The group’s most prominent bispecific is acasunlimab, which hits PD-L1 and the co-stimulatory domain 4-1BB. This also came via OmniAb, as did the FAPα x DR4-targeting GEN1057. Last year Genmab ditched early-stage T-cell engagers against B7-H4 and CD30, and another mystery asset.

Genmab’s OmniAb-derived projects

Source: OncologyPipeline & OmniAb presentation.