Sanofi throws IGM a lifeline

With its undemanding $150m up-front fee Sanofi’s deal with IGM Biosciences might do little to restore investors’ faith in the broad biotech sector, but it does again mark the French group’s willingness to bet on risky ideas. IGM boasts a novel approach, focusing on bispecifics based on the IgM antibody type, but has much still to prove: at Ash in December its lead oncology asset, IGM-2323, showed relatively good safety, but its efficacy was a long way off being competitive. Add to this last year’s shock departure of IGM’s chief medical officer, the highly respected Dan Chen, and IGM’s questionable foray into infectious diseases, and the company looks like it is struggling to find a direction. Notably, Sanofi’s interest is limited to work on IgM antibodies against oncology and immunology/inflammation targets, and not in infectious disease. The deal comes after Sanofi bought into another next-generation oncology antibody approach, taking out Amunix in December. Though the earlier acquisitions of Synthorx and Principia have so far failed to live up to their billing Sanofi continues putting to use the cash it gained from the sale of its Regeneron stake in efforts to restock its R&D pipeline.