Regeneron has given up on a CAR-T candidate acquired from 2seventy bio last year, before it entered the second part of a phase 1/2 lymphoma study.
The dual-targeting CAR-T, dubbed bbT369, was being evaluated in the dose-escalation portion of an early-stage study in patients with relapsed and/or refractory B-cell non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The original plan was for the study to transition into phase 2, but Regeneron confirmed this morning that it had made the “strategic business decision” to halt the study.
No further development on bbT369 is planned, the company told Fierce.
While bbT369 may have reached the end of the road, Regeneron said that the decision doesn’t have any wider impact on the company’s cell therapy strategy.
The asset targets both CD79a and CD20 and was once touted by 2sevenety as the first novel cell therapy to use the company’s megaTAL gene-editing platform to make it into the clinic. Hopes had been high for the drug after 2seventy posted “promising anti-lymphoma activity” in preclinical models back in 2022.
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Regeneron then acquired bbT369 when the biopharma took ownership of 2seventy’s entire preclinical and clinical cell therapy portfolio at the start of 2024. Phil Gregory, head of Regeneron Cell Medicines, told Fierce later that year that his focus was on driving toward the inflection points for this 2seventy pipeline, which also included SC-DARIC33 in acute myeloid leukemia, a MUC16-targeted CAR-T for ovarian cancer, and a MAGE-A4 TCR program in solid tumors, among other assets.
Regeneron’s decision comes at a difficult time for cell therapies in general. Recent weeks have seen Novo Nordisk and Takeda announce separate decisions to abandon further efforts in the modality, with Galapagos following a similar path on Monday.
