Due to increasing competition, Galapagos’ CAR-T exits autoimmune diseases

Gala­pa­gos has stopped de­vel­op­ing its CD19 CAR-T can­di­date in au­toim­mune dis­eases, in­clud­ing plans for a tri­al in sys­temic lu­pus ery­the­mato­sus, mark­ing the first no­table ex­it from a space that’s been at­tract­ing new play­ers.

“For strate­gic rea­sons, we de­cid­ed to dis­con­tin­ue the de­vel­op­ment of our CD19 CAR-T pro­gram in au­toim­mune dis­eases,” a Gala­pa­gos spokesper­son told End­points News in an email. “The com­pet­i­tive land­scape has evolved very rapid­ly, with mul­ti­ple com­pa­nies rolling out pro­grams across im­munol­o­gy in­di­ca­tions, of­ten lead­ing with SLE as a first in­di­ca­tion. Hence, the field is very crowd­ed.”

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