The first-quarter curtain falls on Pieris and Gamida

Pieris and Gamida Cell limped on into 2024, but as the first quarter comes to a close they've effectively thrown in the towel. Pieris says it looked into numerous ways to keep its R&D going, including contacting over 500 potential partners and starting merger talks with one, but these came to nothing. It’s now discontinuing R&D and scaling back to remain little more than a vehicle to collect possible future milestones from Servier, Pfizer and Boston Pharmaceuticals, perhaps hoping to copy the recent success of Merrimack. Meanwhile, Gamida is being taken private by Highbridge Capital, which holds a $75m convertible bond in Gamida, but which will now convert this into equity, effectively squeezing out remaining holders. Gamida fell from grace a year ago when it axed preclinical NK cell projects – in common with Fate and Nkarta it found the going tough in this space – and Highbridge will now fund commercialisation of its US-approved allogeneic stem cell transplant donor source, Omisirge. Pieris mainly focused on developing bispecifics, including 4-1BB-co-stimulated proteins, but this approach has fallen out of favour after disappointments at Alpine Immune Sciences, Lilly, Numab and Inhibrx.

The ups and downs of Pieris and Gamida Cell

Source: OncologyPipeline.