Without detailing the reasons for the partial clinical hold, Gilead said it is discussing next steps with the FDA and other regulators to resolve the hold. Patients already taking magrolimab as part of ongoing AML trials can continue to receive it, and the hold doesn’t affect any trials in solid tumors.
After the success of cancer immunotherapies like Keytruda and Opdivo, drugmakers went on a hunt to find new ways to defeat cancer by turning the immune system onto tumor cells. One such pathway was CD47, a cell protein that sends away immune cells called macrophages, the so-called “don’t-eat-me” signal.
Like CD47 projects that were canceled, magrolimab has had a bumpy road in testing so far. Trials in both AML and myelodysplastic syndrome were put on clinical hold in early 2022, but were allowed to proceed a few months later.
The hold is also a blow for Gilead’s strategy to build an oncology business beyond the CAR-T drugs it acquired with Kite Pharma and breast cancer drug Trodelvy, which came via the $21 billion buyout of Immunomedics.
Combined, its three marketed cancer drugs are on track to exceed $2 billion in sales this year, but they’re overshadowed by Gilead’s antivirals business, which between HIV, hepatitis and COVID drugs racked up more than $11 billion in sales in the first six months of 2023.
Gilead’s efforts to develop an oncology business began more than a decade ago when it bought out Calistoga Pharmaceuticals for $375 million, which gave it a blood cancer drug called Zydelig that has largely disappeared from use. A research deal with Arcus Biosciences targeting another controversial cancer pathway called TIGIT hasn’t made much progress, and a collaboration with European biotech Galapagos has run into trouble.