While oncology heavyweights Roche and Merck & Co have failed to make much headway with their in-house TIGIT offerings, hopes are high for iTeos's belrestotug in combination with GSK's checkpoint inhibitor, Jemperli, which has demonstrated promising response rates for non-small cell lung cancer in the Phase II GALAXIES Lung-201 study.

Attendees at this year's European Society for Medical Oncology meeting in Barcelona can look forward to a range of interesting datasets, from Phase III trials of established products in new settings to preliminary studies of novel products coming through the pipeline.

Agenus said in an SEC filing that Bristol Myers Squibb was sending back AGEN1777, which entered into Phase II development earlier this year.

The Japanese drug discovery bioventure builds on multiple alliances and an in-house platform to get away a successful IPO in Tokyo, which it will use to fund further pipeline and technology development.