GSK will narrow its COVID-19 research collaboration with Vir Biotechnology, retaining rights only to the antibody drug sotrovimab and another experimental treatment under an amended agreement that Vir disclosed Monday.
Vir will continue to develop the vaccine and antibody projects that were discovered under the collaboration, either independently or with new partners. Under the terms of the new agreement, Vir will owe small royalties to GSK on any commercial sales of the terminated programs.
For the COVID treatment sotrovimab and the experimental antibody VIR-7832, GSK will continue to partner with Vir, including sharing costs and developmental expertise.
Announced in April 2020, the GSK-Vir collaboration was successful, leading to an emergency Food and Drug Administration authorization of sotrovimab about a year later. But the antibody’s time on the market was brief, as it was later withdrawn because it wasn’t sufficiently effective against an omicron subvariant.
VIR-7832, meanwhile, is part of a platform trial being run by the U.K. National Health Service and involving nine other drugs. No significant data have been disclosed, however.
The FDA has withdrawn authorization for all antibodies that were used to treat COVID. Only the antiviral drugs Paxlovid, Veklury and Lagevrio remain on the market.
While GSK sought to take a leadership role in battling the COVID pandemic, its contributions have been limited to the launch of sotrovimab; successful development in Europe of a booster vaccine with Sanofi that includes GSK’s immune boosting chemical adjuvant; and successful development of a vaccine with Canadian company Medicago that never reached the market.
Vir, meanwhile, is in the midst of a CEO transition as its founding chief executive, George Scangos, is set to retire April 3. He will be replaced by Marianne De Backer, currently head of business strategy and development at Bayer’s pharmaceuticals division.