Immutep Ltd.’s stock surged 31% on Tuesday morning following the news that it out-licensed rights to Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories Ltd. to develop and commercialize eftilagimod (IMP-321, efti) in selected territories in a deal worth AU$528.4 million (US$349.5 million).

2025 has been the most challenging year in the efforts to fight HIV since at least the advent of antiretroviral therapy. In a report on “Overcoming disruption, transforming the AIDS response,” released last week ahead of World AIDS Day on Dec. 1, the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) described “a global system in shock” by sharply reduced funding from the U.S. and other wealthy nations. Scientifically, for now, progress is ongoing. To mark World AIDS Day, Nature published three independent studies on HIV.

Two South Korean conglomerates – Samyang Holdings Corp. and Samsung Biologics Co. Ltd. – listed their newly spun-off biopharmaceutical units on Korea Exchange’s (KRX) main trading board Nov. 24.

In a deal worth up to $840 million, Third Arc Bio Inc. is licensing Adagene Inc.’s Safebody technology platform to generate two masked CD3 T-cell engagers against unique tumor associated antigens.

South Korean researchers led by Lee In-suk of Yonsei University have reported the most complete oral microbiome catalog to date, with more than 72,000 genomes. Detailed in Cell Host & Microbe on Nov. 12, 2025, the database is expected to serve as a universal platform for academia and enable “precision microbiome medicine” for the industry, Lee told BioWorld.

Enara Bio Ltd. is staking a claim to having validated the first in a new class of tumor antigens derived from unannotated regions of the dark genome, describing its findings in talks and posters being presented at the Society of Immunotherapy in Cancer (SITC) meeting in National Harbor, Md., Nov. 5-9, 2025.

Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. agreed to codevelop and commercialize up to three of Innovent Biologics Co. Ltd.’s immuno-oncology (I-O) and antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) candidates with the signing of a $11.4 billion deal, including $1.2 billion paid up front.

The transition from complex and costly ex vivo strategies to platforms that enable direct cellular intervention within the body, known as in vivo therapies, is marking a paradigm change in the field of gene and cell therapies by simplifying manufacturing, improving tissue targeting and expanding clinical access to treatments.

As the many challenges facing cell therapies are being addressed, the CAR T field continues to evolve beyond its original design of T cells engineered to target hematological malignancies. During the 32nd Annual Congress of the European Society of Gene and Cell Therapy (ESGCT), held in Seville Oct. 7-10, several studies showed how this technology is being redefined as programmable and adaptable immune cells with expanded functional versatility.

A team of U.S. and South Korean researchers have developed an AI model called MSI-SEER that can not only predict microsatellite instability-high (MSI-H) tumors based on tissue slides, but also flag “what it does not know.” “Have you ever asked ChatGPT anything, and the response was, ‘I don’t know?’” Cheong Jae-ho asked during an interview with BioWorld. “Probably not, and that is the problem with AI now.”