Anktiva’s tortuous journey ends

The rollercoaster journey of ImmunityBio’s Anktiva rivalled that of Ferring’s Adstiladrin in terms of intrigue, but after the disappointments success has come at last. After a complete response letter last May Anktiva secured approval yesterday, joining Adstiladrin with a US label for BCG-unresponsive non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC). Both drugs will need a significant financial investment to be marketed successfully, and both appear to have got this. Last August Ferring secured $300m from Royalty Pharma, allowing Adstiladrin to be launched over a year after its approval. The following month ImmunityBio struck a $470m equity and debt deal courtesy of its founder and chairman, Patrick Soon-Shiong. That came on top of the $700m of debt Soon-Shiong had already provided in his continuing efforts to support ImmunityBio, which now promises to launch Anktiva in mid-May. Formally the FDA approval was granted to Anktiva’s originator, Altor Bioscience, an entity acquired by an ImmunityBio legacy company in 2017. ImmunityBio is now capitalised at around $4bn, a valuation exceeding the $2.2bn of CG Oncology, which floated in January and is the next NMIBC player to watch. The Bond-003 trial of CG’s cretostimogene grenadenorepvec is to read out by the end of this year.

Recent developments in NMIBC

Source: OncologyPipeline.