J&J spends $100M upfront, with $1.2B in biobucks, to join Roche and Regeneron in bispecific blood cancer race

J&J is entering the space through a deal with Xencor. In return for the upfront fee and a $25 million equity investment, J&J has secured global rights to Xencor’s CD20xCD3 bispecific antibody. In a phase 1 trial in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma patients, Xencor linked the drug candidate, plamotamab, to a 28% complete response rate. More than one-third of participants in the two higher dose cohorts had complete responses.