After cutting down its pipeline just a few months ago, OSE Immunotherapeutics is at it again, this time reorganizing as Boehringer Ingelheim walks away from the biotech’s metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH) candidate.
The move follows a similar situation in December, when AbbVie abandoned rights to OSE’s inflammation drug and the biotech subsequently narrowed its focus to save cash.
Now, the French biotech is downsizing its pipeline again after its Boehringer-partnered SIRPα antagonist failed to show efficacy in a phase 2 MASH study, according to a March 2 release.
Boehringer is discontinuing the program ing patients with MASH-related liver cirrhosis but will continue developing the asset in oncology, which was the initial focus of the pair’s partnership. The candidate, dubbed BI 770371, is being assessed as a monotherapy and alongside a PD-1 inhibitor for patients with advanced solid tumors, as well as a potential first-line treatment for recurring head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.
The asset is designed to block the “don’t eat me” signaling, which is a strategy used by tumors to evade the immune system.
BI 770371 was well tolerated with a manageable safety profile in the MASH study, OSE said.
The two companies initially linked up in 2018 in a deal worth up to $1.4 billion biobucks for OSE, an agreement the pharma later expanded to stretch into cardio-metabolic diseases.
The immuno-oncology and inflammation/immunology biotech is now restructuring its R&D portfolio to “reinforce execution of its previously announced 2026-2028 strategic plan,” according to the company release.
That three-year plan was unveiled after the AbbVie exit and focuses on two of OSE’s most advanced assets.
The newest pipeline changes include pausing development of OSE‑230, or ABBV-230, the experimental chronic inflammation drug that AbbVie walked away from at the end of last year. Under an original deal penned back in 2024, the Illinois-based pharma secured an exclusive global license to develop, manufacture and commercialize OSE’s anti-ChemR23 monoclonal antibody, which was in preclinical development at the time.
But last December, the pair revised the agreement so that the biotech reassumed responsibility for preclinical development and the initial phase 1 study of OSE-230.
With development now halted, OSE “will continue to assess opportunities to maximize value across its broader pipeline,” according to the biotech.
The streamlining also means OSE is ending research activities for a CLEC‑1 program in oncology. The early myeloid checkpoint target doesn’t “fall within the company’s immediate clinical or partnership priorities.”
As no milestone payments were expected within the next three years for any of the affected programs, the changes won’t impact OSE’s cash runway or financing approach, according to the company.
Instead, the biotech is putting all its eggs in two baskets: one containing lusvertikimab, an IL-7 antibody being investigated in both intravenous and subcutaneous formulations, and the other holding an “off-the-shelf” neo-epitope-based vaccine called Tedopi.
Lusvertikimab is being studied in ulcerative colitis, with potential in chronic pouchitis and hidradenitis suppurativa, while Tedopi is being studied in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), ovarian cancer and pancreatic cancer. The cancer vaccine Tedopi is expected to report topline data for a phase 2 ovarian cancer study in the second quarter of this year, with two NSCLC readouts also expected this year.
“By stepping away from selected early‑stage programs which were not expected to generate meaningful value inflection points over our three-year strategic program, we are concentrating our resources where OSE can create the greatest value in the near term,” OSE CEO Marc Le Bozec said in today’s release.
“In parallel, the company continues to actively assess financing options to fully support the progression of its late‑stage clinical portfolio,” he added.