Building up B cells at Biogen: Grogan’s plans for research

How the new head of research is expanding the immunology footprint in Biogen’s pipeline planning: The BioCentury Show

As Jane Grogan anticipates the unmet needs in patients five years from now, she’s harnessing a wave of interest in targeting B cells as a key driver of an immunology expansion at Biogen.

On The BioCentury Show, Grogan, who became EVP and head of research of  Biogen Inc. (NASDAQ:BIIB) in October, discussed how she’s approaching the mission to build diversity and balance the risk in the company’s portfolio, extending further into disease areas beyond neurology.

Biogen President and CEO Chris Viehbacher has positioned immunology as core to that expansion, along with rare diseases. The company’s May acquisition of Hi-Bio (formally, Human Immunology BioSciences Inc.) for $1.2 billion up front was a marker of intent for adding assets and expertise to the big biotech.

Grogan sees HiBio’s lead asset, felzartamab, as potentially game-changing for nephrology patients, and also for Biogen, paving a path to other nephrology and transplant indications, and more common pathways in which B cells are aberrant.

Felzartamab is a B cell-depleting anti-CD38 mAb that targets several cell types, and notably plasma cells, which maintain antibody memory.

“There’s a lot of renewed interest in targeting B cells in immunology,” said Grogan, not only via B cell-depleting molecules such as the anti-CD38s and other mAbs, but also with the CAR T cell therapies directed against B cells that have had “fantastic efficacy” in lupus nephritis. 

“Targeting B cells remains front and center to getting aberrant autoimmune diseases under control,” said Grogan. “We know that the field knows this — there’s been a lot of work done on this, threading that needle in the right modality.”

While Biogen is placing this bet on a single depleting antibody — “and there’s others in front of us” — Grogan sees possibilities for adding modalities such as bispecifics, T cell engagers and cell therapies. 

She’s also keeping paths open to other modalities, including gene therapies and targeted protein degradation, some of which are being explored via collaborations. 

Internally, she is building a tissue delivery platform for protein therapies, small molecules and oligos, with a first focus on the brain and muscle tissue. 

The approach extends to the neurology research too, including Alzheimer’s disease. “We are also thinking about how you might want to start degrading these aberrant proteins, and this is beyond just, say, amyloid clearance from Alzheimer’s brains — really thinking how we might be able to selectively target autoantibodies or other aberrant proteins as well.”