{"id":81381,"date":"2026-06-11T09:40:46","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T09:40:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/81381\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T09:40:46","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T09:40:46","slug":"roche-drops-100m-fibrosis-drug-from-phase-2-pipeline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/81381\/","title":{"rendered":"Roche drops $100M fibrosis drug from phase 2 pipeline"},"content":{"rendered":"

Roche has waved goodbye to an inflammation drug from Kiniksa Pharmaceuticals\u2014as well as the $100 million that the pharma paid for the therapy\u2014as part of a quarterly pipeline cleanout<\/a> of underperforming assets.<\/p>\n

The Swiss pharma\u2019s Genentech unit paid $80 million upfront<\/a> for vixarelimab, an antibody that targets oncostatin M receptor beta, back in 2022. That deal also involved handing over another $20 million once Roche received certain drug supplies from Kiniksa.<\/p>\n

Vixarelimab\u2019s history stretches even further back, with Kiniksa having itself bought the drug from Biogen for $11.5 million in 2016.<\/p>\n

Under the 2022 deal with Roche, Kiniksa continued to finalize a phase 2b trial of vixarelimab in the reduction of itching in patients with the inflammatory skin disease prurigo nodularis. Genentech then took the drug into a phase 2 study in patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis or systemic sclerosis-associated interstitial lung disease.<\/p>\n

However, Roche has now decided to abandon this program, explaining to Fierce Biotech this morning that a futility analysis had \u201cdetermined that the study was unlikely to achieve its efficacy objectives.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were no new safety signals identified in this study,\u201d according to a Roche spokesperson, who added that the company was \u201cdisappointed\u201d by the futility analysis.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Roche also disclosed this morning that it had dropped a trio of candidates from its phase 1 pipeline, including an in-house antibody against VEGF and angiopoietin 2 called zifibancimig. The pharma had been evaluating the antibody in a phase 1\/2 study of patients with an eye disease called neovascular age-related macular degeneration. The drug was administered with Roche\u2019s Port Delivery system, an FDA-approved, surgically inserted ocular implant.<\/p>\n

The company explained to Fierce that it had \u201cdecided to phase out\u201d the zifibancimig program after an interim data review showed it had a \u201cvery low probability of meeting the high bar for safety, durability, and efficacy required for a therapy that would ensure a strong enough benefit for patients in need.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile we are disappointed with the results, Roche remains fully committed to developing the Port Delivery Platform, starting with Susvimo<\/a> now and expanding it to become a platform for multiple chronic retinal diseases, offering choice to patients to maximize their vision outcomes,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n

Another phase 1 drug sunk by early data is FAP-LTBR, also known as RG6221, a LTBR agonist in development for solid tumors.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe current dataset from the phase 1 trial suggests that continued enrollment is highly unlikely to generate results that justify further clinical development of the molecule,\u201d the pharma told Fierce.<\/p>\n

The final asset to be dumped today was another solid tumor drug called RG6561.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Roche has waved goodbye to an inflammation drug from Kiniksa Pharmaceuticals\u2014as well as the $100 million that the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":81382,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[124],"tags":[42104,1115,9275,42103,750,134],"class_list":["post-81381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-roche","tag-age-related-macular-degeneration","tag-biotech","tag-fierce-biotech-homepage","tag-idiopathic-pulmonary-fibrosis","tag-pipeline","tag-roche"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116730817695306802","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81381\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}