Adicet's cancer U-turn

Earlier this year Adicet switched its cancer focus for its lead project, ADI-001, from DLBCL to mantle cell lymphoma, and on Tuesday the company canned oncology work on the asset entirely. The CD20-targeting gamma-delta Car-T cell therapy is now being developed solely in autoimmune diseases, expanding on Adicet’s earlier move into lupus. The group, which snuck the news into an SEC filing rather than releasing it more broadly, also provided data from 10 mantle cell patients in the phase 1 Glean-1 study. On a cross-trial basis the results look in line with those seen with currently approved mantle cell agents; it’s notable that 30% of patients in Glean-1 had progressed on prior Car-T. Still, the data have deteriorated since January, when there were four complete responses among five mantle cell patients – so perhaps Adicet decided that they were no longer competitive. Durability has also been a question for ADI-001, and here the group only provided data on duration of complete response, so it’s hard to get a full picture. Adicet’s only other clinical-stage cancer hope now is ADI-270, a gamma-delta Car-T cell project targeting CD70, currently in a phase 1/2 trial in renal cancer.

Cross trial comparison in relapsed mantle cell lymphoma

Note: *median duration of complete response; **all leukapheresed pts; all agents have accelerated approval in mantle cell lymphoma, except Breyanzi, which has full approval. Source: Adicet SEC filing & product labels.