China’s next bellwethers bring competition to new modalities

Historically strong in conventional antibodies, China’s next wave of leading companies is developing a host of new modalities, with two-thirds of the top fundraisers pursuing at least one new modality program. Nearly 40% of the 47 therapeutics companies identified as China’s top fundraisers over the last two years are working in bispecific antibodies, and over 20% have at least one CAR T cell therapy in the pipeline. 

In many cases, the programs are directed at potential first-in-class targets or combining established targets into bispecifics. Others are engineering new constructs, such as antibody-cytokine conjugates or cytokine-loaded CAR T cells and dual CAR T cells. Other cell therapies include TCR cells as well an undisclosed immune cell platform...