Dive Brief:

• Sanofi agreed to pay $600 million for a therapy in early human testing that may have the ability to “reset” a patient’s immune system and ward off debilitating inflammatory diseases.
• The treatment, dubbed DR-0201, is known as a bispecific myeloid cell engager. It’s designed to engage specific immune cells that can prompt the body to deplete disease-causing B cells. It’s shown promise in preclinical and Phase 1 studies, Sanofi said. 
• As part of the deal announced Thursday, Sanofi agreed to pay as much as $1.3 billion more to privately held Dren Bio if DR-0201 succeeds in reaching certain development and launch goals. The French drugmaker expects to take over the DR-0201 program in the second quarter.

Dive Insight:

The Dren Bio therapy is part of a growing trend of research into autoimmune disease medicines that can reset the immune system instead of suppressing it. The work is built on promising results in lupus patients first seen in Germany.

For years, scientists have been using cell therapy to fight cancer, but now they are studying its potential in battling a range of diseases caused when the body’s immune system goes haywire. And companies like Dren Bio are testing new ways to engage cells, hoping to offer treatments that are less complicated and easier for patients to handle than the CAR-T therapy used in the German study.

Companies including Candid Therapeutics, Cullinan Therapeutics and Zenas Biopharma are trying approaches similar to Dren Bio’s. And top industry players such as Merck & Co. and Sanofi are buying their way into early research with hefty upfront payments.

Still, there have been setbacks for companies working on immune cell engagers. Earlier this year, IGM Biosciences halted development of an experimental therapy known as imvotamab because it failed to deplete B cell counts as much as hoped. The company also dropped a similar experimental treatment, IGM-2644, and laid off almost three-quarters of its staff.

Sanofi is looking to DR-0201 to bolster its growing immune drug business. The company has seen success with acquisitions and is raking in sales from the blockbuster medicine Dupixent.

Dren Bio, meanwhile, is continuing to advance its pipeline of treatments for both autoimmune diseases and cancer. It is working with Pfizer and Novartis on oncology programs.