Candid’s Song picks ‘efficient’ path to NASDAQ, finding cash for four-asset push

Serial entrepreneur Ken Song is taking two-year-old Candid public via a reverse merger with Rallybio, with a large syndicate set to provide $505 million in fresh funding as the biotech advances its clinical pipeline of T cell engagers for immune disorders.

Monday’s deal brings further financial strength, and an avenue to liquidity, to San Diego-based Candid Therapeutics Inc. and a growing set of programs led by cizutamig, a TCE-targeting BCMA due to begin Phase II testing this year to treat myasthenia gravis and interstitial lung disease. Three more of its TCEs, including bispecific and trispecific programs, are moving toward human testing...