What’s standing out from the crowd?

In drug development, the choices that feel safest early often prove the hardest to revisit later. Platform decisions made to simplify development, manage risk, or smooth regulatory paths can quietly embed assumptions about biology that only surface years downstream.

As bispecific antibodies move from experimental novelty to frontline competition in immuno-oncology, some of those early trade-offs are beginning to reassert themselves. What was once treated as mechanistic nuance may now shape efficacy ceilings, differentiation, and long-term commercial positioning.

The current wave of immuno-oncology bispecifics looks deceptively homogeneous on paper—similar targets, similar rationales, similar ambitions.

Yet when multiple programs converge on the same crowded space, it is often subtle mechanistic asymmetries rather than headline innovation which determine who ultimately pulls ahead.

As several high profile bispecific programs stall or quietly disappear, it’s worth asking whether a design choice long assumed to be interchangeable is exerting more biological and clinical influence than most teams anticipated…

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