Biocytogen Pharmaceuticals (Beijing) Co., Ltd. (Biocytogen, SSE: 688796; HKEX: 02315) and Acepodia (6976:TT), announced that the companies have entered into an option and license agreement designed to enable the structured evaluation of bispecific antibody-drug conjugate (BsADC) programs to further advance the development of dual-payload bispecific antibody-drug conjugates (BsAD2Cs).

The agreement grants Acepodia an option to obtain an exclusive worldwide license from Biocytogen for two BsADC programs. Under the terms of the agreement, Biocytogen is eligible to receive an upfront option fee and, upon Acepodia’s exercise of the option, additional payments including option exercise fees, development, regulatory, and commercial milestone payments, as well as royalties on future product sales. The financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

“This new agreement builds upon our recent co-development collaboration with Acepodia, which has focused on the evaluation and selection of leading bispecific antibody and dual-payload ADC candidates,” said Dr. Yuelei Shen, President and CEO of Biocytogen. “Based on the preclinical research conducted to date, we believe that the combination of Biocytogen’s RenLite^® platform with Acepodia’s Antibody-Dual-Drugs Conjugation (AD2C) technology offers a compelling approach for the development of next-generation dual-payload bispecific ADCs.”

“This option-based framework allows us to systematically assess how dual-payload conjugation strategies can be applied to bispecific antibody formats,” said Sonny Hsiao, Ph.D., Chairman and CEO of Acepodia. “This collaboration reflects our focus on disciplined, data-driven AD2C platform expansion.”

The expanded partnership is intended to leverage complementary platform strengths to advance next-generation ADC designs with the potential to improve upon certain limitations observed in conventional ADC programs. The joint team is progressing towards candidate evaluation milestones, with advancement decisions informed by ongoing research results and Acepodia’s internal governance and option exercise criteria.