FibroGen finally walks away from pamrevlumab

FibroGen’s pamrevlumab always looked like a long shot in pancreatic cancer, so perhaps the biggest surprise is that Tuesday night’s failure of the pivotal Lapis and Precision Promise trials sent the group’s stock down 48% on Wednesday. FibroGen has finally discontinued the anti-connective tissue growth factor MAb, which had previously disappointed in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and Duchenne muscular dystrophy. The group is also culling its workforce by 75%. Lapis studied neoadjuvant pamrevlumab plus chemo in unresectable locally advanced pancreatic cancer, while the investigator-sponsored Precision Promise evaluated a chemo combo in first-line disease. Neither trial met its primary endpoint of overall survival. Aside from FibroGen’s troubled chemotherapy-induced anaemia drug roxadustat, marketed outside the US, the company’s main hope now is its CD46-targeting ADC FG-3246, being developed in prostate cancer. However, this is a competitive space, and investors have been unconvinced by data with the project so far. FibroGen also has preclinical antibodies against galectin-9 – where PureTech Health’s LYT-200 is the only other contender – and CCR8, a more popular target. At the last count FibroGen had $215m in cash, enough to get it into 2026; it reports second-quarter results on 6 August.

FibroGen’s pipeline

Source: OncologyPipeline.