GSK’s cell therapy retreat hits another partner as drugmaker exits Immatics collaboration

It turns out that GSK’s broad retreat from cell therapies went even deeper than it let on.

As Immatics, which scored $50 million upfront from GSK back in 2020 to collaborate on two T cell receptor therapies for solid tumors, revealed in its Q3 update:

On October 24, 2022, GSK provided Immatics with notice of its decision to terminate their collaboration.

If the date looks familiar, that’s because it’s the same day Lyell put out word that GSK axed their cell therapy alliance, which came with $250 million upfront. The day after, Adaptimmune followed up with the news that GSK was also punting its NY-ESO and PRAME programs.

Tony Wood

GSK said at the time that it’s lost faith in the programs after reviewing data from its first-gen lete-cel effort from Adaptimmune. As Tony Wood heads up R&D in the wake of Hal Barron’s departure, the pharma giant added it is driving a culture change to be “more hard-headed” around which pipeline assets to prioritize and which to discontinue.

“The short answer as to why those two programs at different stages were stopped is because we’re — our focus is on being ambitious for patients,” CEO Emma Walmsley said in response to Endpoints News’ question in her Q3 media call. “We’re setting the bar high.”

Under their original deal, Immatics was eligible to receive more than $550 million in development, regulatory and commercial milestones for each autologous TCR T cell therapy product. They didn’t reveal the targets at the time.

“As communicated to Immatics, GSK’s decision was made unrelated to the programs and the progress achieved in the collaboration to date,” Immatics added. “The termination will be effective on December 26, 2022.”

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