Bristol Myers Squibb acquired the degrader-antibody conjugate from Orum Therapeutics in 2023 for $100 million upfront and the possibility of up to $80 million more in milestones.
Bristol Myers Squibb is axing a targeted degrader therapy from Korean biotech Orum Therapeutics after seeing early-stage data from the program.
The pharma has discontinued development of the asset, dubbed ORM-6151, “after reviewing the clinical data for the program,” according to a regulatory filing from Orum on Thursday. ORM-6151 was being evaluated in a Phase 1 study of patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) or myelodysplastic syndrome.
BMS acquired ORM-6151 from Orum in 2023 for $100 million upfront with the potential of $80 million more in milestones. According to Thursday’s announcement, BMS will no longer have the “obligation to make further milestone payments” and Orum “is not obligated to return the upfront payment.”
“BMS acquired this program through an Asset Purchase Agreement. As such, there are no reversion rights to Orum,” Orum CEO SJ Lee told BioSpace in an email. The biotech still has around $180 million in cash as of the second quarter, Lee added, noting that Orum isn’t expecting layoffs in the wake of ORM-6151’s discontinuation.
ORM-6151 is a degrader-antibody conjugate (DAC), a type of targeted therapy composed of an antibody to home in on a specific disease target and a degrader payload that spurs the destruction of cancer cells. ORM-6151 was designed using Orum’s targeted protein degradation approach, which also produced another DAC called ORM-1153 that remains in the biotech’s pipeline. This second asset received the FDA’s clearance last month for clinical testing in AML and other hematologic malignancies.
Orum intends to focus R&D efforts on its pipeline and the DAC platform, Lee told BioSpace.
Several other Big Pharma companies have invested in DACs. These include Roche, which in April paid $20 million upfront to C4 Therapeutics in an agreement that would give the pharma two DAC programs and the opportunity to add a third. Milestones under this agreement could exceed $1 billion. Merck KGaA is also partnered with C4 for two targeted protein degraders.
In June, Johnson & Johnson added to the DAC confidence with the $1 billion buyout of Firefly Bio to target KRAS cancers.
