Innate Pharma has finally called time on a NK cell engager in phase 1/2 development as part of an ongoing fine-tuning of the French biotech’s pipeline.
The Marseille-headquartered company had been evaluating IPH6501, a tetraspecific antibody-based natural killer cell engager, in a phase 1/2 study for B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma. As recently as November, Innate had been planning to enrol up to 184 patients across the U.S., Australia and France.
But the biotech disclosed in its full-year 2025 earnings results Thursday that the study has been “discontinued as part of the company’s strategic prioritization of its pipeline.” Innate had previously reported that the dose escalation portion of the trial had already been completed, and the biotech explained this morning that data from the study would be presented at some point this year.
The decision to end the trial forms part of a larger strategic rethink at the company that saw Innate lay off 30% of its employees last year to focus on its “highest-value assets.” At the time of that move, IPH6501 wasn’t named among the most valued candidates in Innate’s pipeline, suggesting that the drug’s days could be numbered.
Instead, the company said at the time that it wanted to focus on assets like IPH4502, a Nectin-4-targeting antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) undergoing a phase 1 study for a range of solid tumors.
In this morning’s release, Innate CEO Jonathan Dickinson said the company believes IPH4502 has “best-in-class potential among Topo I-based Nectin-4 ADCs.” Dickinson pointed to “early signs of anti-tumor activity in heavily pre-treated patients,” including in patients with urothelial cancer who have already received Astellas’ ADC Padcev.
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Another drug in the spotlight is lacutamab, an anti-KIR3DL2 antibody that Innate is gearing up for a phase 3 study in an aggressive skin cancer called Sézary syndrome. There’s also the AstraZeneca-partnered anti-NKG2A antibody monalizumab, which is being evaluated in a phase 3 study for non-small cell lung cancer. Dickinson described that readout as a “key catalyst for Innate.”
Innate first penned a collaboration with Sanofi back in 2016 to work on various drugs from Innate’s NK cell engager platform, dubbed ANKET. But in April 2025, Sanofi decided to hand back a CD123-targeting drug, known as SAR443579 or IPH6101, to Innate.
In this morning’s release, Innate confirmed that Sanofi had deprioritized another asset from that agreement, namely a trifunctional BCMA-targeting NK cell engager called IPH6401 or SAR’514. Sanofi retains the rights to develop or commercialize the drug in future, Innate noted.
