Lacutamab lift boosts Innate

Innate Pharma contended in December that the death of a Sézary syndrome patient receiving its KIR3DL2 inhibitor lacutamab was disease rather than drug related, and the company was vindicated today with the lifting of an FDA clinical hold after just three months. The group’s share price rose 10% this morning, but there are still questions about the path to market for lacutamab, Innate’s lead wholly-owned project. The uncontrolled Tellomak trial is evaluating the project in Sézary and another cutaneous T-cell lymphoma, mycosis fungoides. Data in late-line Sézary patients impressed at last year’s ASH meeting. Once data in mycosis fungoides are available Innate plans to discuss the potential for accelerated approval with the FDA, execs said during an investor event in December. The group will have to nail down the design of a confirmatory trial – the selection of a comparator could be tricky as Sézary patients in Tellomak had previously progressed on mogamulizumab, one of the few specific treatments for the disease. Innate is also searching for a new chief executive after Mondher Mahjoubi quit in late December to join an unnamed large pharma. For now the group’s former leader, Hervé Brailly, is filling in.