Setanaxib looks like small beer for Calliditas’s Japanese suitor

When Sweden’s Calliditas reported intriguing data with its NOX1/4 inhibitor setanaxib in head and neck cancer earlier this month it was looking for an oncology partner. Now the group has an outright buyer, the Japanese conglomerate Asahi Kasei, leaving questions about the project’s future in cancer. The deal, worth SEK11.2bn ($1.1bn) was likely driven by Calliditas’s Tarpeyo, sold in the US and Europe – but not yet Japan – for the autoimmune kidney disease IgA nephropathy. And the main focus for setanaxib, gained through the €32m purchase of Genkyotex, seems to lie outside oncology, with data due this year in primary biliary cholangitis and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. In oncology Calliditas believes that targeting fibrosis could allow tumour infiltration of killer T cells. The phase 2 study of setanaxib plus Keytruda in head and neck cancer failed its primary endpoint, evaluating tumour size, but showed promising findings on PFS and OS, which Calliditas claimed were statistically significant. However, a spokesperson conceded that this was a proof-of-concept study not powered to show a benefit on PFS. With Calliditas recommending that its shareholders accept today’s offer, it will likely soon be up to Asahi whether to pursue this avenue for setanaxib.