The pressure on the phase 3 Costar Lung study of GSK's anti-Tim-3 MAb cobolimab just ratcheted up, with AstraZeneca revealing the discontinuation of its own shot at the Tim-3 mechanism, sabestomig. The move was announced in a pipeline update at Astra's fourth-quarter financials presentation on Thursday, and followed last month's culling of another big pharma Tim-3 hopeful, Bristol Myers Squibb's BMS-986258, revealed in a quiet termination on the clinicaltrials.gov registry. Astra's decision has been a while coming, as sabestomig had posted mediocre efficacy data at ESMO 2023. Its discontinuation means that GSK's cobolimab remains almost the last significant anti-Tim-3 MAb in development, the only other remaining clinical-stage project at a large biopharma company being BeiGene's surzebiclimab, in phase 1/2. During its financials update this week GSK listed cobolimab as a key oncology asset, and said Costar Lung, which combines it with Jemperli and chemo in post-PD-(L)1 NSCLC, was due to read out in the first half of this year, a timeline that has slipped from late 2024. This slight delay isn't as portentous as the fact that every other big pharma company, including Roche, Novartis, Lilly and now Bristol and Astra, has now got out of Tim-3. The clinical-stage Tim-3 pipelineProjectCompanyStatusStill in development…CobolimabGSKPh3 Costar Lung Jemperli + chemo combo in 2nd-line NSCLCSurzebiclimabBeiGenePh1/2 Tevimbra comboBC3402BioCity BiopharmaPh1/2 Imfinzi combo in liver cancerLB1410*L & L BiopharmaPh1/2 LB4330 comboTQB2618Chia Tai TianqingPh1/2 penpulimab combo in head & neck cancerNB002Neologics BiosciencePh1 in solid tumoursSym023ServierPh1 completed in 2024LBL-003Nanjing Leads BiolabsPh1 completed in 2023...and not so muchSabatolimabNovartisDiscontinued in ph3 in Jan 2024Lomvastomig*RocheDiscontinued in ph2 in 2022Sabestomig*AstraZenecaDiscontinued in ph1/2 in Feb 2025BMS-986258Bristol Myers SquibbPh1/2 Opdivo combo trial terminated in Jan 2025VerzistobartIncyteDiscontinued in ph1 in Jul 2024SHR-1702Jiangsu HengRuiPh1 camrelizumab combo trial terminated in 2023LY3321367LillyDiscontinued in ph1 in 2020LY3415244**LillyDiscontinued in ph1 in 2019Notes: all are monospecific anti-Tim-3 MAbs except *PD-1 x Tim-3 bispecific, and **PD-L1 x Tim-3 bispecific. Source: OncologyPipeline.
The pressure on the phase 3 Costar Lung study of GSK's anti-Tim-3 MAb cobolimab just ratcheted up, with AstraZeneca revealing the discontinuation of its own shot at the Tim-3 mechanism, sabestomig. The move was announced in a pipeline update at Astra's fourth-quarter financials presentation on Thursday, and followed last month's culling of another big pharma Tim-3 hopeful, Bristol Myers Squibb's BMS-986258, revealed in a quiet termination on the clinicaltrials.gov registry. Astra's decision has been a while coming, as sabestomig had posted mediocre efficacy data at ESMO 2023. Its discontinuation means that GSK's cobolimab remains almost the last significant anti-Tim-3 MAb in development, the only other remaining clinical-stage project at a large biopharma company being BeiGene's surzebiclimab, in phase 1/2. During its financials update this week GSK listed cobolimab as a key oncology asset, and said Costar Lung, which combines it with Jemperli and chemo in post-PD-(L)1 NSCLC, was due to read out in the first half of this year, a timeline that has slipped from late 2024. This slight delay isn't as portentous as the fact that every other big pharma company, including Roche, Novartis, Lilly and now Bristol and Astra, has now got out of Tim-3.
The clinical-stage Tim-3 pipeline
