Leerink downgrades iTeos Therapeutics after termination of TIGIT program

Leerink downgraded iTeos Therapeutics (ITOS) to Market Perform from Outperform with a price target of $9, down from $47, following the company’s and GSK‘s (GSK) decision to discontinue their Fc-competent anti-TIGIT, belrestotug, after their Phase 2 GALAXIES Lung-201 and Phase 2 GALAXIES H&N-202 studies failed to demonstrate clinically meaningful improvements over anti-PD-1 monotherapy. Given negative consensus on the TIGIT class and specific questions on belrestotug’s toxicity profile, the firm is not surprised that iTeos traded positively on the news of belrestotug’s termination and announced strategic review to “maximize shareholder value.”