UCB to acquire maker of antibody treatments for autoimmune diseases

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The U.S. is starting to feel the downstream effects of tighter immigration policies, as visa delays and uncertainty push international scientists away. Also, new funding for gene therapy startup Latus Bio, China’s tightening the reins on its supply chain, and more.

Immigration hurdles are eroding the U.S. edge in research

The U.S. is still the gold standard for scientific training, but a mix of stricter immigration policies, visa delays, and bureaucratic friction is starting to push international researchers away, STAT’s Andrew Joseph reports. Labs say they are losing talent and seeing fewer applicants — and that they hesitate to recruit globally due to the roiling visa uncertainty for trainees.

A STAT survey also suggests that researchers are turning down offers, and medical residency match rates for visa-dependent applicants are slipping. Some physicians are even stuck in limbo, unable to work. The Trump administration frames this as a national security fix, but the impact is becoming clear.

“It is going to cause a long-term brain drain — international scholars will stay closer to home,” one University of Alabama researcher told STAT. “They’ll stay in Europe and they’ll stay in Asia. There are good institutions there too.”

Gene therapy startup takes second shot at Huntington’s

Latus Bio just raised another $42 million to push two gene therapies into the clinic — one for a rare Batten disease and a more ambitious swing at Huntington’s, STAT’s Allison DeAngelis reports. The company’s betting it can sidestep some of the issues dogging UniQure’s closely watched Huntington’s program.

Instead of directly targeting the HTT gene like everyone else, Latus is going after MSH3, aiming to indirectly dial down the toxic repeat expansions that drive the disease. It’s also injecting its therapy into a part of the brain that degenerates later, which could make trial comparisons cleaner and avoid the selection quirks that have complicated UniQure’s data.

UCB to acquire maker of antibody treatments for autoimmune diseases

The Belgian drug maker UCB said Sunday that it will acquire Candid Therapeutics, a privately held startup developing bispecific antibody treatments for autoimmune diseases, for $2.2 billion.

Candid is developing experimental medicines that aim to treat an array of autoimmune diseases by depleting a patient’s B cells and “reset” the body’s immune system. It’s a different approach from current drugs for autoimmune conditions that mostly work by blocking molecular targets to suppress the immune system. Candid’s lead drug, still in early clinical trials, is a bispecific antibody that steers a patient’s T cells to the BCMA receptor on B cells.

“This exemplifies the next wave of therapies to treat immune-mediated diseases and reflects our commitment to setting new standards to achieve immune reset,” said UCB CEO Jean-Christophe Tellier, in a statement.

Candid is the second acquisition made by UCB to bolster its autoimmune drug pipeline. Last March, the company bought an experimental therapy from a Hong Kong-based startup.

Biotech entrepreneur Ken Song founded Candid in 2024 after selling RayzeBio, a developer of cancer drugs, to Bristol Myers Squibb. Candid built its portfolio of bispecific drugs via licensing deals with Chinese biotechs. The company was planning to go public via a reverse merger before UCB made its unsolicited acquisition bid.

China tightens grip on pharma supply chains

China has become a full-scale peer to the U.S. in drug development, now running more clinical trials each year. And with its new Decree 834, it’s making clear that it plans to protect and weaponize that position, opines Dennis Kwok, a former member of the Hong Kong Legislative Council and a strategic adviser specializing in China risk and geopolitical advice.

The law gives Beijing sweeping authority to investigate and punish foreign pharma companies whose decisions — like shifting supply chains out of China to comply with U.S. policy — are seen as undermining its industrial security, he writes. This puts Western firms in an impossible bind where following one country’s laws could violate another’s.

“By the time enforcement arrives, preparation is no longer possible,” he writes. “China is now a global drug innovation powerhouse. Beijing has equipped itself with the legal tools to hold Western access to that ecosystem hostage.”

Court blocks mailing of abortion pill nationwide

A federal appeals court has blocked the mailing of mifepristone, forcing the drug to be dispensed in person — effectively undoing years of FDA policy that expanded telehealth access.

The ruling sides with anti-abortion arguments that mail distribution undermines state bans, even though the pill has decades of safety data and now accounts for the majority of U.S. abortions, with a significant share prescribed remotely. It’s also a striking move legally, with the court stepping into territory typically left to the FDA’s scientific judgment.

“This is going to affect patients’ access to abortion and miscarriage care in every state in the nation,” one ACLU lawyer said. “When telemedicine is restricted, rural communities, people with low incomes, people with disabilities, survivors of intimate partner violence and communities of color suffer the most.”