Genmab taps ProfoundBio again

Genmab is advancing a new molecule it got through its $1.8bn takeover of ProfoundBio into clinical development, suggesting that it’s not ready to give up on tapping the assets it acquired through this deal, despite several recent discontinuations.

The asset in question is PRO1106, now coded GEN1106, an ADC targeting SLITRK6; this in itself if highly unusual as the only other similarly acting industry project, according to OncologyPipeline, is Astellas’s ASG-15E. According to a new clinicaltrials.gov listing GEN1106 started phase 1 this month, but the precedent isn’t great: Astellas discontinued ASG-15E in 2017.

It’s likely that ASG-15E simply lacked a therapeutic window; 1mg/kg was selected as the go-forward dose in phase 1, having shown a 38% response rate in bladder cancer, but dose-limiting toxicities became evident as early as at at 0.5mg/kg. SLITRK6 (NTRK-like protein 6) plays a role in neural development, but no other companies have attempted to target it with an ADC or any other modality.

Of course the failure of ASG-15E need not imply the same fate for GEN1106, and the two projects differ structurally. ASG-15E was derived from a 2007 deal between Astellas and Seattle Genetics (now part of Pfizer), and used that company’s MMAE payload, while GEN1106 employs a topoisomerase 1 inhibitor, likely the same one that's used in ProfoundBio’s lead, rinatabart sesutecan.

That last asset, an anti-FRα ADC, is still very much in play, though competitor data, especially from Lilly and AstraZeneca, might be eclipsing it. ProfoundBio ADCs recently discontinued comprise molecules against EGFR x cMet, CD70 and PTK7, and it’s not clear how many of its other projects beyond GEN1106 might still be taken forward into the clinic.

Recently disclosed first-in-human studies*

Note: *these projects were first listed on the clinicaltrials.gov database between 12 and 18 Feb 2026.

Recently added listings to the clinicaltrials.gov registry also feature Boundless Bio, a distressed biotech hit hard by the discontinuation of work on CHK1 inhibition, the premise on which it listed on Nasdaq in 2024.

Boundless isn’t ready to throw in the towel, however, and last month switched its focus to BBI-940, a molecule it describes as an oral kinesin degrader. The group says BBI-940 hits a previously undrugged kinesin involved in DNA segregation, including ecDNA segregation, during mitosis; the Komodo-1 study in breast cancer gets under way this week.

Other notable clinical entrants include Humanwell’s anti-FGFR2b MAb HWS116, and GeneScience’s PI3Kα inhibitor GenSci145. The former shares its mechanism with bemarituzumab, the asset that Amgen acquired through its $1.9bn purchase of Five Prime Therapeutics; however, while that move now looks questionable, Amgen hasn’t given up, and bemarituzumab and HWS116 are among eight anti-FGFR2b MAbs still in development.

Meanwhile, PI3Kα inhibition has firmly turned towards the development of wild-type sparing and even mutant-selective molecules, and GeneScience describes GenSci145 as a novel mutation-selective PI3Kα inhibitor. This follows the entry this month of Cogent’s H1047R mutation-specific CGT6297 into clinical trials.