(AOF) – Inventiva, a biopharmaceutical company, announced that AbbVie has announced the discontinuation of development of cedirogant (ABBV-157), an oral RORy inverse agonist jointly discovered by Inventiva and AbbVie for the treatment of autoimmune diseases. -immune, following recent findings from a non-clinical toxicology study.
The Company’s cash position, including the expected initial payment of $12 million from Sino Biopharm and the €25 million from the EIB credit facility, is not affected by the discontinuation of the cedirogant clinical program and should allow it to finance, as previously announced, its activities until the fourth quarter of 2023. Inventiva’s capabilities and objectives in terms of R&D remain unchanged.
Frédéric Cren, Chairman and CEO and co-founder of Inventiva, said: “Although we are disappointed by the end of the clinical development of cedirogant following a non-clinical toxicology study, we would like to thank our partner AbbVie for these ten years of collaboration.We are now fully dedicated to the development of our lead product lanifibranor, a promising treatment in Phase III clinical development in NASH, a disease for which there is currently no drug approved by regulatory agencies. Thus, we continue to progress in our pivotal Phase III NATiV3 trial and recently reached a major milestone by signing a partnership with Sino Biopharm, a leading Chinese pharmaceutical group, to develop and potentially commercialize lanifibranor in Greater China.”
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An inevitable race for new blockbusters
The patent for Merck’s star product, the cancer drug Keytruda, which accounts for more than 35% of its sales, expires in 2028. Despite the loss, since 2019, of the patents for its three star products (Avastin, Herceptine, Rituxan) Roche was able to renew its portfolio by bringing new molecules to market. However, the discovery and launch of new drugs are increasingly expensive. AstraZeneca spends about $6 billion a year on R&D in a pharmaceutical industry where the life of a patent only lasts ten to fifteen years. This leads laboratories to withdraw from certain activities. Thus J&J, Pfizer, GSK and, no doubt, Novartis soon prefer to refocus on specialty drugs and abandon any ancillary activity.
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