Sensei to ditch its lead candidate and lower workforce amidst strategic evaluate
Sensei Biotherapeutics is ready to desert its sole clinical-stage asset solnerstotug because it prepares to chop its workforce and take into account subsequent steps.
This information comes simply weeks after the immuno-oncology biotech launched optimistic Part I dose enlargement knowledge for the solid-tumour candidate and introduced plans to proceed to Part II testing.
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In a Part I/II research (NCT05864144) with the drug, the six-month progression-free survival (PFS) reached 50% in anti-PD-L1 resistant sufferers handled with 15mg/kg solnerstotug. Solnerstotug is a monoclonal antibody focusing on V-domain Ig suppressor of T-cell activation (VISTA), designed to be conditionally lively in a low-pH tumour microenvironment. This knowledge was offered on the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress 2025, held October 17–21 in Berlin, Germany.
Sensei had deliberate to provoke two Part II research in 2026 in sufferers with anti-PD-L1-resistant non-small cell lung most cancers (NSCLC) and merkel cell carcinoma (MCC) topic to FDA suggestions and capital fundraising, as per its announcement following the ESMO displays.
It now emerges that the biotech has withdrawn plans for additional scientific testing and is exploring choices for the long run, together with a sale of its property, a merger, a sale of the corporate, or a wind-down of operations. The choice comes from the Board of Administrators after intensive discussions across the firm’s pipeline and market situations, in line with Sensei. The biotech additionally mentioned it plans to provoke job losses in an effort to protect money.
“Our function now could be to steward the corporate and its property with care, together with an orderly wind-down of the continuing Part I/II scientific trial and preservation of shareholder worth,” mentioned John Celebi, president and CEO of Sensei.
Sensei’s turbulent historical past
Final 12 months, Sensei had introduced it could be slashing 46% of its workforce and shutting its analysis website in Rockville, Maryland, US. The transfer was described as an organisation-wide restructure to focus its sources on advancing solnerstotug, then known as SNS-101, within the firm’s Q3 earnings press launch in November 2024.
Sensei has suffered a number of setbacks lately, together with a sequence of deserted scientific and preclinical programmes. Again in 2021, the biotech discontinued improvement of SNS-301, its solely different asset to achieve clinical-stage investigation. SNS-301 was a first-in-class nanoparticle vaccine focusing on human aspartate β-hydroxylase (ASPH) and was being investigated in varied most cancers varieties together with persistent myelomonocytic leukemia (CMML) and head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). In the previous few years, at the very least 4 Part I or II-stage trials investigating SNS-301 had been withdrawn or terminated after being introduced, as per GlobalData, the guardian firm of Pharmaceutical Know-how.
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