Sanofi’s trimmed oncology plans lead to $3B biobucks dent for IGM

Sanofi’s on­col­o­gy prun­ing will lead to the evap­o­ra­tion of an es­ti­mat­ed $3 bil­lion in po­ten­tial biobucks for part­ner IGM Bio­sciences.

The French phar­ma gi­ant has amend­ed its $6.15 bil­lion biobuck pact with the Cal­i­for­nia biotech, re­mov­ing the three tar­gets they had planned in on­col­o­gy, IGM said Wednes­day morn­ing. A Sanofi spokesper­son de­clined to com­ment on IGM’s press re­lease.

Sanofi doled out $150 mil­lion up­front in March 2022 for the work, which aims to de­vel­op IgM an­ti­bod­ies that bind to 10 sites, “sort of like Vel­cro.” While biobucks are sub­stan­tial in scope, many biotechs nev­er re­ceive the full mile­stone pack­age promised in R&D pacts be­cause of clin­i­cal fail­ures, re­neged part­ner­ships or oth­er fac­tors.

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