
Biontech follows Immatics and goes after Prame
Biontech’s latest low-key foray into cell therapy, giving Medigene €26m ($29m) for a Prame-directed engineered T-cell receptor asset, might have been inspired by Immatics. A late-breaker at last year’s SITC conference covering Immatics’ anti-Prame TCR IMA203 had shown an impressive, albeit short-lived, 50% remission rate in solid tumours. Biontech now has rights to Medigene’s next-generation Prame-targeting TCR MDG1014, which additionally incorporates a switch receptor converting a negative PD-1 signal from cancer cells into a 4-1BB co-stimulatory one, an approach thought to be necessary to boost activity in solid tumours. Medigene retains rights to its initial anti-Prame construct, MDG1011, whose phase 1 haematological cancer study recently showed reasonable safety and some effect on biomarkers, though the only remission was not sustained. It is notable that Bellicum and Glaxosmithkline/Adaptimmune’s efforts to develop TCRs against Prame both fell on stony ground, and the only other commercial effort targeting this antigen is Immunocore’s IMC-F106C. Medigene stock this morning shot up 90%, giving it a valuation of just over €90m. The obvious question is why did Biontech, flush with Covid vaccine cash, not simply buy Medigene out?
Selected Biontech adoptive cell therapy work | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Project | Source | Description | Target | Status |
BNT211 | Internal | Car-T therapy | Claudin-6 | Ph1/2 in CLDN6+ve solid tumours |
BNT221 (NEO-PTC-01) | Neon | Unmodified cell therapy | Neoantigens | Ph1 in melanoma |
BNT212 | Internal | Car-T therapy | Claudin-18.2 | Preclinical (pancreatic cancer) |
NEO-STC-01 | Neon | Unmodified cell therapy | Ras G12X neoantigens | Preclinical (Ras+ve pancreatic cancer) |
MDG1014 | Medigene | TCR therapy (PD-1/4-1BB switch receptor) | Prame | Preclinical |
Unnamed | Lilly deal | TCR therapy | Undisclosed | Unclear |
Note: all projects autologous. Source: company information. |