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TL1A Global Competitive Landscape

Multiple >$1B deals in just the last few years around this IBD target, including Merck/Prometheus ($10.8B) and Roche/Televant ($7.1B).

Andrew Pannu
April 21, 2025

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An exhaustive list of programs surfaced by Sleuth from patents, company websites, news / press releases, conference abstracts and publications.

Plus some thoughts on this opportunity will evolve in 2025 and beyond:

This is a hot target - in just the last few years we've seen multiple >$1B deals centered on TL1A-targeting assets

  • Merck / Prometheus acquisition ($10.8B)
  • Roche / Televant acquisition ($7.1B upfront)
  • Sanofi / Teva licensing ($1.5B)
  • AbbVie / FutureGen licensing (~$1.7B)

TL1A signaling plays critical roles in driving pathogenesis across various autoimmune diseases, with development furthest along within IBD.

Merck (tulisokibart), Roche (RG6631) and Sanofi / Teva (duvakitug) hold the three most advanced assets in this class, all of which have prioritized IBD as the lead indication. All three have demonstrated >20% placebo-adjusted clinical remission on at least one dose, even across bio-experienced patient subgroups.

One key debate for the ongoing Ph3s is whether anti-TL1A will work in anti-TNF refractory patients given target family similarity. In Merck's Ph2b ARTEMIS-UC study, only 3/25 anti-TNF exposed patients reached remission. This is critical since anti-TNF remains a 1L mainstay across I&I indications, particularly post-LOE.

And while those trials enroll, much of the news flow in 2025 will focus on emerging assets, early-stage data (i.e. dosing) and trial initiations.

TL1A's potential anti-fibrotic effect may determine whether it achieves blockbuster sales and justifies M&A takeouts, as this would be a meaningful differentiator in a fairly crowded category. Without that, TL1A could struggle to stand out despite solid efficacy / safety, as IBD physicians already have several effective, familiar, safe drug classes on the market (i.e. IL-23p19, α4β7)

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