Candid Therapeutics, a new San Diego biotech bent on becoming a leader in the emerging T-cell engager space, has unwrapped three new research collaborations focusing on autoimmune diseases.
Candid will partner with EpimAb Biotherapeutics, Nona Biosciences and Ab Studio to beef up its pipeline of bispecific antibodies, the company announced in a trio of Dec. 16 releases.
The EpimAb deal could be worth more than $1 billion if multiple drug candidates are successfully commercialized, Candid said in a release. The figure includes an undisclosed upfront payment plus potential development and sales milestones. Beyond that total deal value, EpimAb would be in line for royalties on any commercialized medicines.
The Nona deal focuses on discovering new T-cell engagers using Nona’s HBICE platform, with Candid then fully responsible for the further development of any promising candidates. Nona can garner up to $320 million under the deal, including an undisclosed upfront payment and potential milestone payments, according to the release.
Under its deal, computer-aided antibody designer Ab Studio will receive undisclosed payments, Candid said in the release.
“Ab Studio has a promising platform for antibody design and engineering,” Candid chairman, president and CEO Ken Song, M.D., said in the release. “One of our clinical-stage programs, CND261, was originally designed by Ab Studio.”
Candid burst onto the biotech scene in September with a $370 million series A and a pair of lead assets picked up through the acquisition of two other biotechs, Vignette Bio and TRC 2004. Those drug candidates, CND106 and CND261, have both completed phase 1 trials in oncology, with Candid now pivoting them to autoimmune disease.
Song launched Candid after overseeing the $4.1 billion sale of RayzeBio to Bristol Myers Squibb. He formed Candid as a shell company while he hunted for opportunities in the biotech world, eventually settling on the use of T-cell engagers—bispecific antibodies that bind to T cells and a molecule on a target cell, coercing the T cells to attack the target—to go after rogue B cells in autoimmune diseases.
In September, Song said he hoped to have safety data for CND106 and CND261 in autoimmune disease by 2025. He also named AbbVie’s Humira and Biogen and Genentech’s Rituxan as autoimmune drugs he thinks Candid’s T-cell engagers can topple.