Summit Therapeutics and its Chinese partner Akeso have a few competitors now.
Merck, the maker of the drug they’re trying to beat, is entering the PD-1/VEGF space by handing down $588 million upfront to get the exclusive global license to a Phase 1 asset from LaNova Medicines.
The New Jersey pharma giant could dish out up to another $2.7 billion in biobucks to Shanghai-based LaNova. Last month, the five-year-old startup said it
started a Phase 1
in China for the experimental medicine, dubbed LM-299. It also said it planned to file an IND in the US in the second half of the year after securing $42 million in a Series C1.
Merck has been
one of the most acquisitive pharmas
in recent years in an attempt to shore up the looming patent cliff for the world’s best-selling medicine, the immunotherapy Keytruda. It’s bought three companies this year — EyeBio, Abceutics and Harpoon Therapeutics — and paid
$700 million
for a bispecific antibody from Curon.
Summit and Akeso made waves at the year’s two biggest cancer confabs, ASCO and ESMO, with data on their PD-1/VEGF bispecific called ivonescimab, which was found to be better than Keytruda in a
head-to-head trial in China
. The partners are running multiple studies in the US and elsewhere.
“If it’s good for patients, it’s good for me. I’m happy with that,” Merck chief medical officer Eliav Barr told
Endpoints News
at the time of Summit’s initial press release in May, in which no hard data were disclosed.
After Summit released more data, Barr told Endpoints on the sidelines of ESMO: “If you look at the data that they’ve shown so far, they’ve shown some really exciting data, but where there’s somewhat less efficacy, you start to see that catch-up with the toxicity, or at least what seems like it.”
Multiple other parties are intrigued. BioNTech further delved into the space this week by
buying
out its near-term Phase 3 partner Biotheus for
$800 million upfront
. Former Seagen CEO David Epstein is also a figure in the field with his new leadership post at preclinical-stage Ottimo Pharma.
Merck and LaNova expect the deal to close this quarter. LaNova has inked partnerships with other pharmas, including an
ADC pact with AstraZeneca
.