WuXi has signed an agreement with Candid Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused in advancing T-cell engagers for autoimmune and inflammatory diseases.

Under the terms of the agreement, Candid will have exclusive global rights to a preclinical trispecific T-cell Engager discovered at WuXi Biologics' proprietary universal multispecific antibody platform WuXiBody. WuXi Biologics is eligible to obtain an upfront payment, and development and sales milestones totaling up to USD 925 million as well as royalties.

Dr. Chris Chen, CEO of WuXi Biologics, commented, "We're glad to enable Candid to advance the progress of T-cell engagers through WuXiBodyTM. This collaboration not only showcases the platform's capabilities in trispecific discovery in addition to its well-validated bispecific discovery, but also reinforces WuXi Biologics' position as a preferred partner for pioneering next-generation modalities. With this collaboration, we have enabled seven global programs for molecules discovery through our Research (R) platform in 2024, and are eligible to receive around USD 140 million in near-term payments and the total potential payments exceeding USD 2.3 billion. We look forward to supporting Candid and other global partners in bringing more innovative therapies to benefit patients around the world."

"To further solidify our leadership position in T-cell engagers to deplete B cells for treatment of autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, this transaction uniquely positions us with three TCE programs targeting BCMA, CD20, and CD19 in or near clinical development. We are excited to further the advances made by WuXi Biologics and to unlock the full potential of this molecule," said Dr. Ken Song, Chairman, President and CEO of Candid.

Based on the widespread adoption of WuXiBody platform in bispecific antibody discovery, WuXi Biologics has upgraded it to deliver transformative and customized multispecific antibodies, addressing the growing global demand for these complex molecules.

WuXiBody can effectively break through the discovery and CMC barriers for the development of many multispecific antibodies with high expression yield, high stability, good solubility, and easy purification to homogeneity, expedite the process by 6-18 months and significantly reduce manufacturing costs, limitations still faced by many other current multispecific platforms.

WuXiBody platform enables almost any mAb sequence pairs to be assembled into multispecific constructs, which are expected to have low immunogenicity risk and longer in vivo half-life. WuXiBody platform also has a unique structural flexibility, which makes it convenient to build various formats with different combinations of valencies (1+1, 2+2, 1+1+2, etc.) to meet the requirements of different target biology.