GSK moves ahead of Roche in the Tim3 race

While the Tim3 race has Novartis’s sabatolimab as the technical leader in phase 3, Roche’s RG7769 is the asset many had been watching. Today GSK made a bid to jump ahead, saying its own Tim3 MAb, cobolimab, had met criteria enabling it to begin the pivotal portion of the phase 2/3 Costar trial. Not only that, but in March Roche quietly discontinued enrolment into the RG7769 cohort of a combo study, suggesting that this asset, a bispecific Roche had prioritised last year, has been shelved. Cobolimab represents an important pillar of GSK’s tenuous attempt to regain an oncology presence, though little actual data are available to gauge whether this is a smart move. Sabatolimab’s phase 2 readout has been delayed, while Lilly discontinued LY3415233, a Tim3/PD-1 bispecific, in favour of the pure anti-Tim3 asset LY3321367. Costar combines cobolimab with Jemperli in post-PD-(L)1 NSCLC. Today GSK also trumpeted the success of a separate trial, Perla, comparing Jemperli head to head against Merck & Co’s Keytruda in front-line NSCLC. Here too the win is hard to gauge, however, as the primary measure was overall response, no survival data are available, and Perla “was not designed to demonstrate superiority” over Keytruda.

This is a corrected version of a story published earlier.