Bayer terminated a two-year-old partnership with Atara Biotherapeutics that included the development of off-the-shelf T-cell immunotherapy for high mesothelin-expressing tumors.

BioNTech continues to build on the success of the company’s mRNA COVID-19 vaccine co-developed with Pfizer, rapidly expanding its investigational pipeline to include additional infectious diseases and oncology with a first-in-class CAR-T program in solid tumors.

Nektar Therapeutics outlined a strategic reorganization plan that includes cutting 70 percent of the company’s workforce, only weeks after Bristol Myers Squibb abandoned its clinical collaboration program with Nektar on bladder cancer and renal cell carcinoma. 

Deaths associated with Astellas Pharma’s gene therapy program for patients with X-linked Myotubular Myopathy underscore some of the risks of developing potential one-and-done treatment options for serious diseases.

At the Clinical Trials Plenary Session at the 2022 AACR Annual Meeting, Dr. John Haanen, M.D., Ph.D., of the Netherlands Cancer Institute presented data from BioNTech’s ongoing first-in-human Phase I/II trial of the company’s CAR-T cell therapy BNT211 in patients with advanced solid tumors.

Yescarta

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Gilead Company Kite’s Yescarta (axicabtagene ciloleucel) CAR T-cell therapy for adult patients with large B-cell lymphoma that is refractory to first-line chemoimmunotherapy or that relapses within 12 months of first-line chemoimmunotherapy.

The European Medicines Agency on March 25 recommended the use of Johnson & Johnson and partner Legend Biotech Corp.’s CAR-T therapy Carvykti to treat multiple myeloma, nearly a month after the treatment was cleared in the United States.

The U.S. health regulator approved a therapy developed by Johnson & Johnson and the healthcare company’s China-focused partner Legend Biotech Corp. to treat a type of white blood cell cancer.

Atara Biotherapeutics, an immunology-focused biopharmaceutical company based in San Francisco, announced a fatal serious adverse event (SAE) with a patient in a clinical trial at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

Legend Biotech’s clinical trial of the company’s candidate drug for relapsed or refractory T-cell lymphoma was placed on hold effective February 11 after some issues were raised on the first patient dosed.