It’s that time of year when Big Pharmas quietly dump unwanted and/or failed meds, and now it’s the turn of GlaxoSmithKline.
While spending much of its time talking up its newly announced CureVac COVID-19 manufacturing and development deal, tucked away in its fourth-quarter and full-year financials was the announcement of a mini drug cull.
This includes GSK3174998, an OX40 agonist, which was canned for “a lack of sufficient clinical activity” in cancer. The drug had been in a trial both on its own and with Merck’s checkpoint inhibitor Keytruda in patients with “selected advanced or recurrent solid tumors.”
Then there’s GSK2330811, an anti-OSM for systemic sclerosis, and Benlysta-Rituxan for Sjogren’s syndrome, which was “terminated on not meeting efficacy criteria.”
Another drug, GSK2831781 (an anti-LAG3), was also discontinued in phase 2 for ulcerative colitis, but this was disclosed earlier in the month by partner Immutep.