The Long Run with Luke Timmerman
Mar 3, 2026 · 1 hr 6 min · 17 segments
Ken Song, CEO of San Diego-based Candid Therapeutics, on developing bispecific T-cell engaging antibodies for autoimmune disease.
Luke TimmermanHost
Well, this is really how different types of innovations ladder upon each other or complement each other, where it takes someone to cross disciplines a little bit and see how things might connect.
But I think you're referring to, just for those who aren't familiar, the early research This was, I think, from Georg Schett's lab in Germany, where they took the CD19-directed CAR-T cell therapies, which had been successful for curing people with rare leukemias, cancer.
And found that if you can take that same therapy that wipes out overactive B cells in those leukemias and then wipe out, you know, overactive B cells and autoimmunity, you can achieve what they call an immune reset or reboot.
And so the immune system comes back after this massive depletion, comes back to something more like homeostasis.
other thing to highlight was a lot of things that were being developed in the, you know, inflammation space.
I mean, yeah, there's rituximab and things like that, but a lot of people thought many autoimmune diseases were T cell driven.
And so the other thing that really came as a surprise was that just as deep B cell and plasma cell depletion could lend towards these amazing clinical results.
And then over in another area, you're seeing progress with bispecific T-cell engagers that can achieve a similar kind of effect.
What if you could do this type of modality that you can make through recombinant means, put it in a vial, inject it once every month or so, and get a similar result.
And so I think it was like, well, this is an interesting hypothesis, I would say, to test.
And the other thing that I think I'd realized was, well, there's a lot of T cell engager antibodies that are available.
Well, this is really how different types of innovations ladder upon each other or complement each other, where it takes someone to cross disciplines a little bit and see how things might connect.
But I think you're referring to, just for those who aren't familiar, the early research This was, I think, from Georg Schett's lab in Germany, where they took the CD19-directed CAR-T cell therapies, which had been successful for curing people with rare leukemias, cancer.
And found that if you can take that same therapy that wipes out overactive B cells in those leukemias and then wipe out, you know, overactive B cells and autoimmunity, you can achieve what they call an immune reset or reboot.
And so the immune system comes back after this massive depletion, comes back to something more like homeostasis.
other thing to highlight was a lot of things that were being developed in the, you know, inflammation space.
I mean, yeah, there's rituximab and things like that, but a lot of people thought many autoimmune diseases were T cell driven.
And so the other thing that really came as a surprise was that just as deep B cell and plasma cell depletion could lend towards these amazing clinical results.
And then over in another area, you're seeing progress with bispecific T-cell engagers that can achieve a similar kind of effect.
What if you could do this type of modality that you can make through recombinant means, put it in a vial, inject it once every month or so, and get a similar result.
And so I think it was like, well, this is an interesting hypothesis, I would say, to test.
And the other thing that I think I'd realized was, well, there's a lot of T cell engager antibodies that are available.
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