Recently, Candid Therapeutics, an American pharmaceutical company focusing on the field of autoimmunity, announced three R&D cooperation transactions on TCE bispecific antibodies with a total potential transaction amount of over $1.32 billion, equivalent to nearly RMB 10 billion at one time. All the transaction parties are Chinese companies.

What is more noteworthy is that Candid just announced a round A financing of over $370 million three months ago,. The company’s two core products are TCE bispecific antibodies, both from China Biotech.

In fact, from Merck's $1.3 billion deal to GSK's $850 million investment, the "gold content" of Chinese companies' self-developed TCE bispecific antibodies has already been well proven. The new moves by Candid Therapeutics indicate that the opportunities for TCE bispecific antibodies in the autoimmune field are far from over. The rush to register "Initial Seeds" by domestic and foreign companies and even capital is directly tied to the future competition landscape of "big drugs" in the autoimmune field. The rush by domestic and international companies, as well as capital, to secure early-stage "seedlings" is directly tied to the future competitive landscape for blockbuster drugs in the autoimmune sector.

According to incomplete statistics, from the perspective of clinical trial progress, YK012 (targeting CD19/CD3) of Excyte Biopharma Ltd. (Hereinafter referred to as Excyte), a Chinese company, is ahead of the same target drugs. Public information shows that the company focuses on the research and development of innovative new bispecific and multifunctional antibody new drugs including TCE. Its autoimmune indication was approved for clinical trials in China in December 2024, and the FIH (first in human) will be enrolled in early March this year. The US Pre-IND application was officially accepted by the FDA in November 2024, therefore clinical trial approval anticipated in April this year. Due to the adoption of international multi-center clinical research strategy, the clinical development speed is expected to accelerate significantly. Overall, the progress of autoimmune indication development is in the first echelon globally.

(1) Phase I clinical trial is in progress, showing the advantages of efficacy, safety, and long half-life, also low-cost CMC

Globally, the first TCE bispecific antibody that was successfully commercialized can be traced back to 10 years ago. To this day, TCE bispecific antibodies in the clinical stage of Chinese biotech are still frequently "raised" by MNCs. This is because the "blockbuster" era of this type of drug has arrived, with therapeutic potential far exceeding expectations. They are advancing from the last-line treatment to the first and second-line treatment breakthroughs. For example, AstraZeneca's AZD0486, intended to be used for relapsed and refractory follicular non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, is making strides from the last-line treatment to the first and second-line treatment impact, with an estimated annual sales peak of about $5 billion. Moreover, these drugs are expanding beyond the field of tumors into the field of autoimmune diseases, where there are significant unmet clinical needs across dozens of autoimmune conditions, representing a market potentially worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

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