Tag: Biotech

UCB has agreed to acquire Candid Therapeutics for up to $2.2 billion, the companies said, in a deal to expand the buyer’s presence in T-cell engager (TCE) antibodies designed for immunology indications by adding Candid’s pipeline of bispecific and trispecific antibody candidates.

The deal upends plans announced in March by Candid to enter a reverse merger with Rallybio, in which Rallybio would have acquired Candid but retained Candid’s name and created new shares to be traded on NASDAQ. The new company was to have developed Candid’s pipeline using $505 million in concurrent financing from a syndicate of healthcare institutional investors and mutual funds.

Based in San Diego, privately held Candid’s pipeline of autoimmune and inflammatory disease candidates includes treatments licensed from Chinese biotechs.

Candid’s lead asset, cizutamig, is a bispecific antibody for autoantibody-driven autoimmune diseases. Licensed from Shanghai-based EpimAb Biotherapeutics, cizutamig is directed to B-cell maturation antigen (BCMA) on plasma cells and CD3 on T cells, with the aim of enabling T-cell–mediated cytotoxicity against both kinds of cells while limiting cytokine release. Cizutamig is currently in multiple Phase I clinical studies in over 10 autoimmune indications, with clinical evaluation in more than 100 patients with multiple myeloma (completed with 40 patients) and autoimmune diseases (68 patients across multiple indications in China and Europe).

Also in Phase I development within Candid’s pipeline is CND261, a CD20 x CD3 bispecific antibody TCE that the company licenses from Shanghai-based Genor Biopharma. CND261 is being developed to treat autoimmune diseases by targeting a variety of B-cell subtypes, from pro-B-cells to plasmablasts/plasma cells. Candid has completed a 93-patient Phase I dose escalation study of CND261 in non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL).

The rest of Candid’s pipeline consists of two preclinical candidates in IND-enabling studies:

• CND319, a CD19xCD20xCD3 trispecific antibody designed to target the CD19 and CD20 antigens on a broad range of B-cell subtypes, and licensed from WuXi Biologics last year for up to $925 million in upfront and milestone payments, plus royalties.
• CND460, a BCMAxCD19xCD3 trispecific antibody designed to target the BCMA and CD19 antigens on a broad range of B-cell subtypes.

CND261, CND319, and CND460 represent a pipeline of multi-specific TCE antibodies designed to enable deep, targeted depletion of pathogenic B cell populations in immune-mediated diseases to achieve immune reset—what UCB termed a modular, multi-antigen targeting strategy to address complementary B-cell subsets.

“We started Candid with the goal to redefine the standard of care for immune-mediated diseases. We purposefully built a broad portfolio of TCE assets against a number of clinical indications,” stated Ken Song, MD, Candid’s chairman, CEO, and president. Previously, as president, CEO, and board director of radiopharmaceutical developer RayzeBio, Song negotiated the approximately $4.1 billion sale of the company to Bristol Myers Squibb, completed in 2024.

“Our focus has been to efficiently generate clinical data so as to identify where our TCEs could provide maximal clinical benefit for the broadest number of patients,” Song explained.

Investors appeared less enthusiastic about the deal. UCB stock is traded primarily on Euronext Brussels, where the company’s shares barely budged Monday, dipping 0.65% to €228.30 ($267.28) as of 10:37 am ET.

Platform-based strategy

UCB’s plan to acquire Candid comes roughly two months after the Belgian biotech giant agreed to license exclusive global rights to further develop, manufacture, and commercialize Hong Kong-based Antengene’s ATG-201, a CD19 and CD3 bispecific TCE antibody designed to target B cell-related autoimmune diseases. UCB agreed to pay Antengene $80 million in upfront and near-term milestone payments, plus up to approximately $1.1 billion in payments tied to achieving development and commercial milestones under the agreement, which also granted UCB access to Antengene’s associated manufacturing technology in relation to ATG-201.

UCB said its planned acquisition of Candid, plus the Antengene deal, reflects a platform-based strategy of complementary investments intended to expand its reach across multiple B-cell targets and disease mechanisms, thus strengthening its ability to address antibody-mediated autoimmune diseases through multiple approaches rather than relying on a single asset or modality.

“This acquisition demonstrates our inorganic innovation strategy in action and marks a pivotal moment for UCB, as we secure a significant technological advancement in the field with the addition of cizutamig to our pipeline,” UCB CEO Jean-Christophe Tellier said in a statement. “This exemplifies the next wave of therapies to treat immune-mediated diseases and reflects our commitment to setting new standards to achieve immune reset.

Tellier added that UCB considers cizutamig “a potential transformative asset, that complements our existing programs, and is poised to redefine treatment expectations for severe, underserved immune-mediated diseases, offering the potential to deliver meaningful improvements in patient outcomes and quality of life.”

UCB has agreed to pay Candid $2 billion upfront and up to $200 million in potential future milestone payments. The transaction is subject to closing conditions that include antitrust clearance and other customary conditions and is expected to close by the end of the second quarter or early Q3 2026.

The deal is good news for Two River and Vida Ventures, funds that played central roles in the creation and early development of Candid, which was launched in 2024 with more than $370 million in capital. Two River, together with Third Rock Ventures, helped found Candid, which was created through the merger of Two River-founded TRC 2004 and Vignette Bio.

“This outcome reflects the power of bringing together bold science, disciplined company building, and the right strategic partners,” said Arie Belldegrun, MD, founder and senior managing director of Vida Ventures, chairman of Two River, and co-founder of Bellco Health.

UCB added that it expects the anticipated financial impact of the Candid acquisition to be “manageable.” The company has not changed its most recent 2026 guidance, which calls for revenue growth in the high single‑digit to low double‑digit range at constant exchange rates, while underlying profitability, measured by “adjusted” earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA), which excludes one-time expenses, is expected to increase in the high single‑digit to mid‑teens range.

“UCB’s successful track record in immunology, including development, launch, and commercialization, will enable the continuation of our clinical programs and help deliver on the potential for our pipeline,” Song added.

The post UCB to Acquire Candid for up to $2.2B, Expanding Presence in TCE Antibodies for Immunology appeared first on GEN – Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News.

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Good morning. I was having a fine day yesterday until my colleague shared this game that tests how good (or how bad in my case) your color perception is.

The need-to-know this morning

• Vertex Pharma reported first-quarter earnings that generally matched consensus, although the company said it was shelving an early stage, mRNA-based therapy for cystic fibrosis due to poor tolerability. The drug, called VX-522, was being developed as part of a collaboration with Moderna. 
• Pfizer and Alkermes also reported earnings.
• Viridian Therapeutics announced positive top-line results from a Phase 3 study of its drug, called elegrobart, in patients with chronic thyroid eye disease.

Cytokinetics drug Myqorzo meets twin efficacy goals in study of genetic heart disease

Cytokinetics said its drug Myqorzo significantly improved heart failure symptoms and cardiovascular fitness in patients with non-obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, an inherited heart disorder.

Continue to STAT+ to read the full story…

Remote collaboration software tools, such as Zoom or Google Docs, have become essential for teamwork. But they often overlook the fact that people do not all approach collaboration in the same way, according to researchers at North Carolina State University (NCSU).

Scientists report that they have now developed a new human-computer interaction (HCI) method called RemoteCollabEval (RCE) to identify barriers to collaboration and inclusivity, allowing designers and developers to build software features that better support diverse teamwork styles.

The work is part of the broader HCI field, which examines how people use digital systems and how interfaces can be optimized for clarity and ease of use.

“At present, most remote collaboration platforms are evaluated by designers and developers using established HCI inspection methods,” says Sandeep Kuttal, PhD, the principal investigator behind the work and an associate professor of computer science at NCSU. “One of the most widely used inspection methods is a ‘groupware walkthrough,’ where designers essentially play out how a collaborative effort might unfold between two or three hypothetical users. However, these methods typically assume all users behave in similar ways.”

As senior author of a paper, “Equity by Design: A New HCI Method for Surfacing Inclusivity Issues in Remote Collaboration Software,” that will be presented at the ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference (DIS 2026) in Singapore, from June 13-17, Kuttal notes that “It’s well-established that people from various backgrounds often have different collaboration and communication styles. “Existing HCI inspection methods don’t account for these differences, which limits how inclusive and effective these tools can be. That’s what we set out to address.”

Six key personality facets

As a first step, the researchers drew on established social science and software engineering research to identify six key personality facets that influence collaborative behavior:

• Leadership style: Does the individual take a democratic or authoritative approach?
• Interruption style: Does the individual interrupt others or wait for cues?
• Non-verbal cues: Is the individual expressive or reserved in digital spaces?
• Relationship-seeking: Does the individual focus on building rapport or primarily on achieving goals?
• Social awareness: Is the individual attentive to or unaware of what their teammates are doing?
• Collaborative self-efficacy: How confident is the individual in the group’s ability to perform?

The researchers then created hypothetical users called “personas,” which are detailed representations of different types of users that incorporate descriptions of each of the six facets. These personas allow designers to simulate interpersonal friction and uncover “inclusivity bugs” that might otherwise go unnoticed during standard testing.

“Because we have descriptions of all six facets for each persona, we can incorporate those key characteristics into our assessment of how well a given platform allows for effective collaboration between people of different backgrounds,” explains Kuttal.

The team then modified existing groupware walkthrough methods, requiring designers and developers to explicitly consider these six facets as part of the process and created a specialized walkthrough. This combination of personas that account for personality facets and the specialized walkthrough forms the RCE method.

As a proof-of-concept study, the scientists recruited 29 undergraduate and graduate students and split them into 10 teams. Five teams inspected an existing remote collaboration platform using the conventional Groupware Walkthrough method; the other five teams inspected the same platform using RCE.

“The teams who used the RCE method identified six times more inclusivity issues than the conventional method,” continues Kuttal. “Essentially, RCE did a better job of identifying when conflicting styles would make collaboration between personas difficult. This is important, because identifying these challenges gives designers and developers an opportunity to modify features and user interfaces to improve these remote collaborative platforms. And, ultimately, to improve collaboration itself.

“Because RCE is a standardized, systematic method, it can be used by designers and developers anywhere. It doesn’t require a huge budget, or an expensive research effort. It’s a method that can easily be used to make these platforms better.”

The post New Human-Computer Interaction Software Designed to Support Diverse Online Teamwork Styles appeared first on GEN – Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News.

When synthetic biologists sketch gene circuits, they usually think in terms of promoters, repressors, and transcription factors—biochemical parts that toggle genes on or off. But DNA is not a flat schematic. It’s a physical polymer that twists, coils, and buckles as genes are transcribed. A pair of new papers from MIT and collaborators shows that this physicality could suggest approaches to controlling the output of gene circuits.

In a recent Science study titled “Gene syntax defines supercoiling-mediated transcriptional feedback,” researchers demonstrate that the order and orientation of neighboring genes—what they call gene syntax—can reshape local DNA supercoiling and, in turn, amplify or suppress the expression of adjacent genes.

“Syntax will be really useful for dynamic circuits. Now we have the ability to select not only the biochemistry of circuits, but also the physical design to support dynamics,” said Katie Galloway, PhD, an assistant professor of chemical engineering at MIT.

The team engineered human cell lines and hiPSCs with synthetic two‑gene reporter circuits arranged in tandem, divergent, or convergent configurations. Their earlier modeling predicted that divergent syntax should boost the expression of both genes, while tandem syntax should suppress the downstream gene. “The thing that we were trying to solve in this paper was: When you put two genes on the same piece of DNA, how does their physical interaction become coupled?” said Galloway. The experimental results matched those predictions: divergent circuits amplified both genes, while tandem circuits showed strong upstream‑to‑downstream repression, with effects reaching up to 25‑fold.

To understand why, the researchers used Region Capture Micro‑C, a high‑resolution genome‑folding mapping technique, to visualize how transcription reshapes DNA. When a gene was activated, the DNA downstream tightened into plectonemes—twisted structures that hinder RNA polymerase binding—while upstream DNA loosened. “Supercoiling impacts transcription of adjacent genes by altering RNA polymerase binding, forming a feedback loop,” the authors of the first paper wrote.

The second paper, published in Nature Biomedical Engineering and titled “STRAIGHT-IN Dual: a platform for dual single-copy integrations of DNA payloads and gene circuits into human induced pluripotent stem cells,” introduced STRAIGHT‑IN Dual, a platform that enables simultaneous, allele‑specific, single‑copy integration of two DNA constructs into hiPSCs. This system allowed the team to “investigate how promoter choice and gene syntax influence transgene silencing and how these design features affect reporter expression and forward programming of hiPSCs into neurons, motor neurons, and endothelial cells,” according to the authors of the second paper.

Using STRAIGHT‑IN Dual, the researchers also demonstrated a practical application: a divergent circuit expressing two components of a yellow fever antibody produced higher output than other configurations.

“This is really exciting because we can coordinate gene expression in ways that just weren’t possible before,” Galloway said. “Now that we understand the syntax, I think this will pave the way for us to program dynamic behaviors.

“If you want coordinated expression, a divergent circuit is great. If you want something that’s either/or, you can imagine using a convergent or tandem circuit, so when one turns on, the other turns off, and you can alternate pulses,” Galloway added.

The post Gene Syntax Determines DNA Supercoiling and Modulates Gene Expression appeared first on GEN – Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News.