Vir Bio's Cancer Treatment Progress Driving Shares Hight

Summary

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Bloomberg Businessweek: Vir Bio's Cancer Treatment Progress Driving Shares Higher

Hosts: Carol Massar & Tim Stenovec
Guest: Marianne de Backer, CEO of Vir Biotechnology
Date: March 2, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode centers on the latest advancements from Vir Biotechnology in developing a novel cancer immunotherapy for metastatic prostate cancer. Hosts Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec discuss with Dr. Marianne de Backer (CEO, Vir Biotechnology) their promising phase one data, a major partnership with Astellas Pharma, and implications for cancer care and the biotech sector.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Vir Biotechnology’s Breakthrough in Prostate Cancer Therapy

• Data Release and Market Impact: Vir Biotechnology's shares surged over 20% after announcing updated phase one trial results and a new collaboration with Astellas Pharma (02:16).
  • Vir's drug candidate, VR5500, is a "mask T cell engager" showing strong results in heavily pre-treated metastatic prostate cancer patients.

Details on Phase One Data and Efficacy

• Patient Response:
  • Out of 58 patients treated, the "efficacious dose" subset (22 patients) had:
    • 82% showing PSA 50 declines (a key cancer biomarker)
    • 53% achieving PSA 90 declines
  • Notable quote (Marianne de Backer, 03:38):

    "We have patients who have really exhausted all, all lines of therapy... and even in those patients we could see, see quite dramatic results. Sometimes even only after nine weeks of treatment, you could see that all those lesions were really disappearing."

• Real Patient Case:
  • 63-year-old with five prior therapies, extensive metastasis (including 14 liver lesions), experienced a 99% decline in PSA after nine weeks of VR5500.
  • (04:49) Dr. de Backer:

    "A picture says more than a thousand words. You see all these liver lesions and other tumor lesions really disappearing... the way this works is really we are trying to activate the patient's own immune system to fight the cancer."

Expansion Plans and Patient Population

• Broader Application:
  • The phase one trial began with late-line (treatment-resistant) cases. Next steps include expansion to earlier-line patients and combination therapies.
  • (07:52) Marianne de Backer explains:

    "We are starting three expansion cohorts already in the next quarter... looking at late-line, early-line with combination therapy, and metastatic hormone sensitive patients."

Mechanism of Action: Immunotherapy Innovation

• How VR5500 Works:
  • Unlike CAR-T, VR5500 activates native T cells within the tumor without removing and re-engineering them.
  • (09:33) Dr. de Backer:

    "We're really just activating the T cells that are already there in the tumor of the patient."

Individual Variation and Personalized Care

• Patient Variation:
  • Thus far, high response rates across the trial. No clear determinants for non-response yet.
  • (09:33)

    "We haven't seen determinants of patients that would respond versus not respond. That's not what we see in our data. We see generally patients responding very well."

Industry Implications and Partnership

• Big Pharma Interest:
  • Carol asks about potential acquisition; Dr. de Backer emphasizes strategic partnership over acquisition at this time.
  • (10:48) Dr. de Backer:

    "We realized that as a small biotech company... we would really benefit from a partner... We had a lot of companies coming in and as you have seen, we have eventually chosen Astellas."

  • Chose Astellas for their experience and 50/50 profit sharing model; Astellas leads in prostate cancer therapeutics.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On seeing dramatic patient results (06:26):

  • Marianne de Backer:

    "It really gave us chills when we saw this."

• On innovation versus acquisition (10:26):

  • Tim Stenovec:

    "A lot of times the larger pharmaceutical companies end up making acquisitions rather than developing the technology themselves."

• On near-future plans (12:28):

  • Marianne de Backer:

    "We are starting expansion trials... next quarter and our plan is to go into registration of trials next year."

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 02:16 – Introduction to Vir Biotechnology’s news and stock surge
• 03:38 – Dr. de Backer explains phase one trial data and patient outcomes
• 04:49 – Dramatic patient case; visual evidence of tumor regression
• 06:26 – Emotional impact of seeing treatment results
• 07:52 – Next steps: expansion cohorts and trial strategy
• 09:33 – Explaining the underlying science and patient variability
• 10:48 – Discussion of industry partnerships and Astellas deal
• 12:28 – Looking ahead: trial timeline and regulatory plans

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Summary Flow & Tone

Throughout the conversation, optimism and measured excitement about the real-world implications of Vir’s early-stage therapy come through, particularly in references to visualized patient success and strategic growth. Both hosts focus on the broader context—innovation in biotech, the role of partnerships, and the path from early trials to eventual commercialization—ensuring listeners see both the scientific and market impact.

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This episode provides a hopeful, nuanced outlook on a potential breakthrough in prostate cancer and an insider’s view of biotech innovation and deal-making.

Transcript

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[Carol Massar]

Audio Studios Podcasts Radio news.

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You're listening to Bloomberg businessweek with Carol Massar and Tim Stanvak on Bloomberg Radio.

[Tim Stankevicius]

Mayor Mamdani saying in a tweet, I just got off the phone with President Trump. In our meeting earlier, I shared my concerns about Columbia student Elena Agha Yeva, who was detained by ICE this morning. He has just informed me that she will be released imminently. All right, and he sent a New York Times story that says immigration agents arrested a Columbia University student after misrepresenting themselves to access a building. The school said.

[Carol Massar]

All right, so certainly some actions they are coming off of that meeting or those conversations. Okay. And we'll monitor in case there's any other headlines across, folks. In the meantime, we want to kind of get to some stuff that's been going on in the biotech space. There's actually a lot going on, I feel like. And when you think about the big pharmaceutical, pharmaceutical companies constantly watching that space looking to maybe be beef up their own pipelines. One company we want to Talk about is Vera Biotechnology shares closing higher by 20% on Tuesday after the drug developer gave updated data from an earlier stage trial for its investigative therapy for prostate cancer and said it is collaborating with Astellas Pharma on that same asset.

[Tim Stankevicius]

I want to bring in Marianne de Packer, CEO of the $1.2 billion market cap Veer Biotechnology ticker Vir. The stock up more than 50% this year. It's up to 11. About 11.6% of the float is shorted. She joins us once again from San Francisco. It's been about a month since we last connected. It was during the JP Morgan Health conference and a lot of news from your company since then. Some additional information. You guys gave updated phase one data showing that PSMA targeting T cell engager Veer 5500 demonstrated positive anti tumor activity and favorable safety profile in patients with metastatic prostate cancer. This is phase one data. What still has to be proven? What still has to be shown?

[Marianne de Packer]

Hey Tim. Hi Carol. Glad to be back. Yes, this was a very big week for us at Veer Biotechnology. As you mentioned, we released new data for a prostate cancer drug. We announced a landmark deal with Astellas and also yesterday we announced actually an equity raise of 150 million. So it has been a busy week. Now getting to your question. Yes, this is an early trial. We have actually tested our drug for 5500 which is a mask T cell engager in 58 patients. And what we have seen in a subset of Those patients, about 22 patients that were at efficacious dose is very impressive efficacy. So really 82% of the patients showing PSA 50 declines. PSA is a biomarker in prostate cancer, you probably know, and 53% PSA 90. So you know, significant impact from an efficacy perspective. We also had quite a number of patients where we could actually measure the tumor. So and you know, I don't know if you have seen some of the patient cases that we released on Monday, but really impressive cases where you have patients who have really exhausted all, all lines of therapy, you know, sometimes five, six prior lines of therapy. Everything has, you know, worked for a while but then didn't work anymore. Patients relapse and they're really littered with metastasis, you know, to the lungs to deliver. And prognosis for these patients where, you know, really the tumor has metastasized to the liver, for example, is really, really very bad. And even in those patients we could see, see quite dramatic results. Sometimes even only after nine weeks of treatment. You could see that all those lesions were really disappearing. And so early data, but very promising efficacy combined with a very, very promising tolerability and safety profile. Because as you probably know, in prostate cancer there's quite a bit of therapeutics available, but a lot of them have vulnerability issues.

[Carol Massar]

Yeah, absolutely. Maren. We're actually showing some folks for who are watching on our YouTube chann and on our streaming Bloomberg original service. For those on radio, there's two shots and it's obviously one shot that's an X ray and showing a lot of dark spots, which I would assume is all indications of cancer. And then you're showing, I'm assuming the second shot is greatly reduced in terms of the black imaging. And I'm assuming that's after using this drug. Is that a fair assessment?

[Marianne de Packer]

Yes, Exactly. This is a 63.

[Carol Massar]

Seems pretty dramatic.

[Marianne de Packer]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it really gave us chills when we saw this. And we have a number of these pictures from patients. And again, these are patients that have. This patient specifically, 63 year old patient had had five prior lines of therapy. Nothing worked anymore. The tumor had metastasized to a lot of soft tissues, to lungs, liver. He had 14 lesions in the liver alone. So prognosis being very, very. This patient, after nine weeks of treatment with our drug VR5500, you can see here that he had a PSA decline, the biomarker for prostate cancer with 99%. As you can see, a picture says more than 1,000 words. You see all these liver lesions and other tumor lesions really disappearing. The way this works is really we are trying to activate the patient's own immune system to fight the cancer. That's what the T cell engager really does.

[Tim Stankevicius]

So is this, is this the idea of the therapy, if and when it is approved, Is it a therapy of last resort? Or would you use this for different types of prostate cancer? Maybe even identified early cancers where surgery and radiation, or maybe just radiation are the options, or maybe just surgery is what's been done, right?

[Marianne de Packer]

No. As is typical for these kind of clinical trials, you sort of start out with, you know, late line patients and you show your efficacy in those patients. But then gradually, you know, depending on your profile, you can move to earlier line patients. And we are actually going to start three expansion cohorts already in the next quarter. One will be looking at these kind of patients which are late line, have tried everything, you know, trying to do with a monotherapy of our drugs, see what we can do there. But to your point, then we are also starting two Additional trials, one is in early Lyme patients that will be get the combination of your 5500 together with enzalutamide. And we are also going to test that in metastatic hormone sensitive patients that are early line. So there's certainly an opportunity because of the profile of the drug combination of being efficacious and safe, that allows us to expand and see could this be actually beneficial to a much broader set of patients.

[Carol Massar]

I'm always kind of blown away by immunotherapy and especially when it comes to cancer treatment. Dr. DeBacker. And I'm just curious, in terms of the more we learn about this, especially when it comes to things like cancer or any treatment, but cancer in particular, does it become much more specialized? Each patient is different in terms of how they're going to react to different things, including immunotherapy. So it might, this might work really well for someone who's a late line patient, but it might not for somebody else. Or are you guys starting to see that we can start to make much more blanket statements?

[Marianne de Packer]

Yeah, I mean, sometimes it's of course, a little bit predictable depending on the patients. And again, these are very, very sick patients. Right. But we haven't seen, you know, determinants of patients that would respond versus not respond. That's not what we see in our data. We see generally patients responding very well. And in our subset of our efficacious dose, as I mentioned, we have 82% of the patients that can achieve a PSA 50, so that are really responding to the drug. But it remains really remarkable to see this because, remember, this is not taking T cells out of a patient. You know, it's not a personalized treatment. We're not taking T cells, modifying them and placing them back. We are really just activating the T cells that are already there in the tumor of the patient.

[Tim Stankevicius]

Marianne, as Carol mentioned, one of the reasons we like talking to companies like yours is because a lot of times the larger pharmaceutical companies end up making acquisitions rather than developing the technology themselves. And I'm wondering, how would you, how would you characterize it, this point? Takeover interest from other companies? Has anyone approached you?

[Marianne de Packer]

Yes. So what we started doing last year, once we were sort of seeing that year 5500 had this very promising profile, is we realized that as a small biotech company with no commercial footprint yet, and in a space where speed is really of the essence, that we would really benefit from a partner. And we were not looking for an acquisition partner, we were looking for a partner that could Help us accelerating bringing these drugs, you know, this drug to patients. So accelerating us in expansion. Trials go much broader because these are very expensive trials doing more things in parallel. And so we run a strategic process. In the course of last year, we had a lot of companies coming in and as you have seen, we have eventually chosen Astellas. As you know, they're the number one prostate cancer company with 6 billion in revenue for Xtandi in 2024. So we ended up choosing Astellas because they have a lot of experience with the type of partnership we were looking for, which is a 50, 50 profit split. They have done the same with CGEN. Yeah. And also they've done the same in Medifasia. So we thought that was a good structure. We were, you know, again, we are really very, very enthusiastic about our early data. And this is not just, you know, a reflection of one asset because we use the same technology across our portfolio. So we are really motivated to grow the company.

[Carol Massar]

I need to squeeze in just before you go, 20 seconds, first phase, but there you've got to go through four phase trials. So what are we talking still a couple of years in terms of the process? Just very quickly, Just a few seconds here.

[Marianne de Packer]

Yes. So we are starting expansion trials, as I said earlier, in the next quarter and our plans is to go into registration of trials next year.

[Carol Massar]

Ah, okay. So a very big year ahead of you guys. Marianne de Baker, she's Chief Executive Officer of Veer Biotechnology, joining us from the West Coast. This is Bloomberg.

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