Genmab deals another blow to CD37

Yesterday Genmab said it had discontinued development of GEN3009, its bispecific against CD37 – representing another blow to this mechanism, after Nordic Nanovector threw in the towel with its CD37-targeted radionucleotide Betalutin last year. GEN3009 had once been part of a 2020 tie-up with AbbVie, but the big pharma walked away from this project in 2022; the main focus of that deal had been the anti-CD20 bispecific epcoritamab, which is still going strong. Genmab said in its third-quarter presentation yesterday that it had called time on GEN3009 for strategic reasons, rather than over safety or regulatory concerns. Even at the time of the AbbVie deal there had been concerns about CD37 as a target, given previous discontinuations by the likes of Boehringer Ingelheim and Astellas. Since then, Nordic Nanovector shelved Betalutin on disappointing results from the Paradigme trial; the group had already halted the rest of its pipeline to focus on that study. In June Nordic acquired Thor Medical, a private manufacturer of alpha emitters for radiopharmaceutical developers. A look at the remaining CD37 pipeline shows little activity, with Debiopharm describing its ADC naratuximab as inactive. If the future for this target looked bleak before, it is even dimmer now.

Projects in development targeting CD37

Source: OncologyPipeline.