Caribou Biosciences announced today that it will reprioritize its pipeline and focus on two specific clinical candidates. These two specific candidates are CB-010 for the treatment of patients with large B cell lymphoma and CB-011 for the treatment of patients with Multiple Myeloma (MM). Both of these candidates are being explored in phase 1 studies.
In order to achieve this strategic pipeline reprioritization, it is discontinuing two specific programs. One program it is removing would be the use of CB-010 as a CAR-T to treat patients with lupus in the phase 1 GALLOP study. It is not clear why this was cut, but more than likely initial data might not be adequate enough to continue it.
The second program being cut is the evaluation of CB-012 for the treatment of patients with relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML). The ongoing phase 1 AMpLify trial was testing this drug for the treatment of these specific blood cancer patients. The problem that it ran into here was noted, and it is that additional clinical data would be needed in order to continue work on it. With this in mind, it probably made the hard decision to just cut this program as well.
The major downside of these programs being cut from the pipeline go beyond shareholder value being reduced. With these programs being eliminated, Caribou had to cut 32% of its workforce. On the flip side, this move is going to greatly conserve its cash for an extended period of time. It believes that this reduction of employees will allow it to fund its operations into the 2nd half of 2027.
This company might be able to redeem itself, but that just depends upon what happens in the latter part of this year. In the 2nd half of 2025, it intends to release data from CB-010 for the treatment of patients with LBCL and CB-011 for the treatment of patients with r/r MM. The truth is that this company’s pipeline is dwindling down.
Consider that at one point it had a candidate, known as CB-020 being developed as an anti-ROR1 CAR-NK cell therapy (natural killer cell therapy) for the treatment of a variety of diseases. However, it announced that it would reprioritize its pipeline in March of 2024, eliminating this candidate from further development.
The science is promising in that each CAR-T candidate is developed in a different way. With CB-010 it has been armored for checkpoint disruption, which is believed to reduce T-cell exhaustion (allow for CAR-T persistence). On the other hand, CB-011 has been armored with immune cloaking. This particular modification is believed to eliminate T and NK cell-mediated immune rejection.
I believe that Caribou Biosciences is on the chopping block. The reason why is because it has been reducing its pipeline considerably and axing a lot of programs. The two data releases expected in the 2nd half of this year are from the ANTLER and CaMMouflage studies.
If adequate safety/efficacy data doesn’t come from these studies using CB-010 and CB-011 respectively, then I believe it would be an end to any other candidate advancement. Especially since, as part of its pipeline reprioritization announced today, it cut off its preclinical research programs as well.
