Amgen sweeps last BCMA BiTE standing out of pipeline

05 Aug 2022
endpts.com
Exactly a year after resuming dosing on a bispecific that hits BCMA, Amgen is scrapping the drug altogether for “strategic reasons.” The move — along with a separate decision to deprioritize acapatamab in favor of another PSMA-targeting drug, AMG 340, for the treatment of metastatic castrate-resistant prostate cancer — marks another round of trial and error as Amgen figures out the best configurations and uses of its half-life extended bispecific T cell engagers (BiTEs). The company made an unceremonial note about the BCMA exit as part of its Q2 pipeline update, noting that the drug has been discontinued. Known as AMG 701, it was being tested for multiple myeloma. Amgen had previously paused enrollment in a Phase I study for pavurutamab to discuss “protocol modifications to optimize safety monitoring and mitigation with the FDA.” It resumed dosing last year. It also appears to take the last BCMA project out of the pipeline. Researchers billed pavurutamab as a successor to AMG 420, which was one of the first BCMA bispecifics to enter the clinic but triggered high rates of infection in trials. And even before the halt, analysts weren’t particularly impressed by the early data from pavurutamab. Blincyto, the acute lymphoblastic leukemia therapy, remains the only FDA-approved BiTE. There’s still tarlatamab, which targets delta-like ligand 3 (DLL3) with a big focus on small cell lung cancer. And apart from PSMA, Amgen is also exploring whether going after STEAP1 — six-transmembrane epithelial antigen of the prostate 1 — can treat prostate cancer, through a Phase I trial of AMG 509.
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