Janux, Sanofi, Gilead, Takeda latest

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Lots on the table today about AI-driven drug discovery, including some startups to watch in this space. Also, we’ve updated our obesity drug tracker and we talk about Gilead’s new cancer deal.

The need-to-know this morning

Shares of Janux Therapeutics rose sharply after the company reported better-than-expected results from an early study of its experimental treatment for prostate cancer.
Takeda is paying $200 million upfront to license an experimental drug from Keros Therapeutics in development for myelodysplastic syndrome and myelofibrosis.
Roivant is discontinuing the development of a drug for the lung disease sarcoidosis following negative results from a mid-stage clinical trial.

Moving forward with AI and drug discovery

The hype bubble of AI-driven drug discovery is getting a little precarious. We recently saw Insilico Medicine fall short on statistically significant efficacy with its AI-designed drug, and Recursion Pharmaceuticals showed no reportable efficacy with its own AI-discovered therapy.

AI’s true potential, Caleb Appleton of Bison Ventures opines in a new First Opinion essay, is in complementing traditional drug discovery, particularly in environments where data are plentiful enough to help answer specific biological questions.

“Improvements in efficiency will be real, but they won’t take the $3 billion it costs to develop a successful drug to $50 million anytime soon,” he writes. “How the industry reacts in the coming months and years will dictate whether we enter an AI winter.”

5 companies using AI to design small molecule drugs

In a related piece, STAT’s Brittany Trang this morning highlights five companies in the AI-driven drug discovery space for small molecules.

Startups like Terray Therapeutics and Isomorphic Labs are at the forefront of the field, having raised hundreds of millions of dollars to find new medicines. Interestingly, companies like Schrödinger and Iambic are distancing themselves just a touch from labels: “We don’t think of ourselves as an AI company,” said Fred Manby, chief technical officer at Iambic Therapeutics — saying instead the company integrates machine learning with automated lab data, synthetic training data generated with computational physics, and Iambic’s platform that “enables us to move so effectively in discovery.”

Updating the obesity drug tracker. Plus, a new feature

From STAT’s Allison DeAngelis: The competition to build better obesity drugs has gotten more intense than ever.

A new quarterly update of STAT’s Obesity Drug Tracker shows there are now close to 50 obesity drugs in Phase 2 and Phase 3 clinical trials, setting the stage for a news-filled 2025.

Last week, Amgen — one of the pharma companies angling for a slice of weight loss drug sales — reported that its therapy MariTide led to an average of roughly 20% weight loss over a year. Boehringer Ingelheim has discontinued the development of an obesity drug targeting neuropeptide Y receptor type 2, while Arrowhead is moving its INHBE program into clinical trials. More startups clamored into the field this last quarter, including Kailera Therapeutics and Pep2Tango Therapeutics.

All told, the tracker is keeping tabs on roughly 150 drugs in development for weight loss and related conditions, about double the number of compounds than when STAT first published the tracker in fall 2023.

Tracking these updates is about to get even easier — you can register to get notified of updates to STAT’s data tools and industry trackers, including the Obesity Drug Tracker, Generative AI Tracker, and CRISPR Tracker.

Gilead expanding in ADCs with Tubulis

Gilead Sciences is trying harder in the antibody drug conjugate space — partnering with Germany-based Tubulis in a deal worth $20 million up front to target solid tumors. Just last month, Gilead withdrew its antibody drug conjugate Trodelvy in bladder cancer, which had been approved in 2021, after a confirmatory trial failed. Trodelvy is still available for other indications, including some advanced breast cancers, and still remains a strong seller for the company.

In the deal, Gilead said Tubulis will design a topoisomerase I inhibitor-based ADC meant to have address challenges like durability and off-target toxicity issues.

Sanofi pours $1 billion into China for insulin plant

Sanofi just made its largest investment thus far in China, committing just over $1 billion to build a new insulin manufacturing facility in Beijing. This is Sanofi’s fourth such site in China, which reflects the increasing demand for diabetes treatments for the 140 million adults there who have the disease. Sanofi’s been in China for four decades now, and the company’s plans are to integrate advanced automation, digital management, and sustainability practices into the plant.

This move comes amid challenges in China for Western pharma, FiercePharma points out, such as AstraZeneca’s compliance woes and reported layoffs at Johnson & Johnson and Merck. Pfizer, meanwhile, has its own $1 billion planned investment in the country to accelerate drug development and support local biotechs.