Roche piles on the neoantigen doubts

In 2019, Roche shelled out $300m up front to work with Adaptive Biotechnologies on neoantigen-targeting T-cell receptor (TCR) candidates, but this deal has been canned, according to an Adaptive SEC filing last week. Little progress appears to have been made with the unnamed candidates; Adaptive said in February 2023 that the companies had selected the first project to take forward, with two further data packages submitted to Roche; Adaptive added in August 2023 that the first IND had been cleared, but no assets from the partnership made it into the clinic. Neoantigens are generated by tumour cells and it’s hoped that targeting them could allow for personalised cancer therapies; however, this approach is yet to convince. Roche has another, much more advanced neoantigen-based effort with the BioNTech-originated autogene cevumeran. However, this has run into problems with failure this year in first-line melanoma, followed by a clinical hold in adjuvant muscle-invasive bladder cancer. Other neoadjuvant issues include Merck & Co and Moderna being knocked back for accelerated approval for their candidate, intismeran autogene (mRNA-4157). If Roche is cooling on neoantigens in general, and not just Adaptive specifically, this could be bad news for BioNTech.