Chinese ADC Star Duality Biotherapeutics Soars 91% on Hong Kong IPO Debut

On April 15, 2025, ADC star enterprise DualityBio officially listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

DualityBio’s global offering was priced at HK$94.6 per share, with an opening price of HK$181, representing a gain of over 91% and a total market capitalization exceeding HK$15 billion. As of press time, DualityBio’s shares were trading at HK$209, up more than 121%.

DualityBio was founded in 2019 and has rapidly emerged as a star player in the ADC field within just a few years. Since its inception, DualityBio has undergone four rounds of financing, completing its final pre-IPO Series B+ round in September 2022. The post-money valuation after dilution reached $270 million. Investors included numerous well-known venture capital firms and industrial capital partners, such as Alliances Healthcare Partners, Lilly Asia Ventures, Huagai Capital, AstraZeneca-CICC Healthcare Fund, and Sino-Singapore Venture Capital.

Over the course of more than three years of investment, Huagai Medical Early-Stage Fund has gained a deeper understanding of DualityBio’s successful IPO. The Fund noted that DualityBio, as one of its portfolio companies, has rapidly evolved into a global leader in the antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) field. The company is conducting seven global clinical trials for its multiple ADC candidates in clinical development across more than 230 clinical trial centers in 17 countries. By leveraging a flywheel model of “platform technology licensing + global clinical synergy,” DualityBio has both accelerated its R&D progress and alleviated financial pressure. To date, collaborations have generated approximately $500 million in upfront payments, with total transaction values reaching $6 billion. The company has established several global partnerships, including those with BioNTech, BeiGene, Adcendo, GSK, and Avenzo Therapeutics.

According to the prospectus, DualityBio’s ADC assets are not solely reliant on internal R&D; instead, the company acquires antibodies from domestic enterprises and leverages its proprietary technology platform for development. This model provides a distinct advantage for the rapid expansion of its pipeline.

Currently, DualityBio has established four global innovative ADC technology platforms, including DITAC (Immuno-Toxin Antibody Conjugate Platform), DIBAC (Bispecific ADC Platform), DIMAC (Immunomodulatory Payload Platform), and DUPAC (Novel Linker-Payload Complex Platform).

Four Major Technology Platforms. Source: DualityBio Prospectus

Among these, DITAC (ImmunoToxin Antibody Conjugate platform) is DualityBio’s flagship ADC platform based on topoisomerase inhibitors. It has been validated by global clinical data from over 1,000 patients across major markets including the United States, China, Europe, and Australia, with a focus on enhancing drug stability and efficacy. A key highlight is its camptothecin-derived toxin, which benchmarks against Daiichi Sankyo’s DXd technology platform. The development of this platform is based on significant technical improvements, screening, and optimization of a proprietary ADC component library, including its proprietary payloads P1003 and P1021. Consequently, DITAC provides DualityBio with critical flexibility in ADC design, enabling superior systemic stability, tumor-specific payload release, bystander killing effects, and rapid clearance of toxin payloads.

The DIBAC platform is one of the few bispecific ADC platforms in the world. Compared with conventional ADC drugs, bispecific ADCs may offer significant advantages over traditional monospecific ADCs and combination therapies by integrating two distinct binding moieties into a single agent. Despite their promising prospects, the complexity of bispecific ADCs poses challenges in antibody engineering, stability, and manufacturing. The DIBAC platform boasts extensive expertise in bispecific antibody engineering, as well as AI-enabled target selection and antibody design.

The DIMAC platform is equipped with DualityBio’s proprietary immunomodulatory payloads, unlocking the potential of antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) to address significant unmet needs in autoimmune diseases and other therapeutic areas. Currently, treatments for many chronic autoimmune diseases often lead to severe side effects. ADCs can reshape the treatment landscape for autoimmune diseases by providing targeted therapies with lower systemic exposure, enhanced efficacy, and improved safety profiles. Molecules developed using the DIMAC platform have demonstrated potent and broad anti-inflammatory activity in preclinical studies, characterized by prolonged duration of action, high stability, and low systemic exposure.

The DUPAC platform is designed to develop linker-payload complexes with novel mechanisms of action that outperform traditional cytotoxic drugs, addressing the growing challenge of drug resistance and hard-to-treat tumors. Currently, DualityBio has made significant progress in various unique payload mechanisms and has identified candidate toxin payloads with broad antitumor activity against multiple solid tumors. These payloads have demonstrated potent direct and bystander killing effects in preclinical studies.

For ADC companies, technology platforms are key to expanding the depth and breadth of their pipelines. The success of DualityBio’s model relies on the intrinsic value of its four major ADC platforms. For instance, DualityBio’s HER3/EGFR bispecific antibody, DB-1418, was developed using its DIBAC platform after the company acquired the HER3 antibody for an upfront payment of $1.25 million. In January 2025, Avenzo secured this drug with a $50 million upfront payment. Subsequently, DualityBio acquired monoclonal antibodies targeting B7-H3/PD-L1, B7-H4, and B7-H3 at low costs from Dashuo Therapeutics, Harbour BioMed, and WuXi Biologics, respectively.

Leveraging its four global innovative ADC technology platforms, DualityBio has built a diversified pipeline covering cancer and autoimmune diseases, comprising 12 self-developed ADC candidates, with seven products having entered clinical stages. Among these, the two core products are DB-1303/BNT323 and DB-1311/BNT324.

DB-1303/BNT323 is an HER2-targeting antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) candidate primarily indicated for the treatment of HER2-expressing endometrial cancer and breast cancer. The product has been granted Breakthrough Therapy Designation by the U.S. FDA. It is currently undergoing two registrational clinical trials (including one global trial and one trial in China), along with a potential global registrational study. The first indication for this product is HER2-positive endometrial cancer (EC), with an accelerated approval application to the FDA expected as early as 2025. Furthermore, DB-1303 plans to submit a Biologics License Application (BLA) to the FDA in 2025 for HER2-expressing endometrial cancer, positioning it to potentially become the first domestically developed ADC innovative drug approved for marketing in the United States.

DB-1311/BNT324 is an antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) candidate targeting the B7-H3 molecule, primarily indicated for the treatment of small cell lung cancer (SCLC), castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC), and esophageal squamous cell carcinoma, among others. Through its collaboration with BioNTech, DualityBio is actively advancing a comprehensive clinical development program to unlock the full potential of DB-1311 as both a monotherapy and in combination regimens. In its Phase I/IIa clinical trials, DB-1311 has demonstrated encouraging antitumor activity and a manageable safety profile in patients with advanced SCLC, CRPC, and various other solid tumors.

In addition to its core products, DualityBio has five other clinical-stage ADCs (DB-1310, DB-1305/BNT325, DB-1312/BG-C9074, DB-1419, and DB-2304), two bispecific ADCs (DB-1418/AVZO-1418 and DB-1421), and multiple other preclinical ADCs, covering a range of cancers and autoimmune diseases.

Notably, although DualityBio’s candidate drugs have not yet been approved for market launch, its ADC assets have attracted numerous leading global biopharmaceutical companies, resulting in the establishment of several global partnerships.

In April 2023, DualityBio’s products gained international recognition from a foreign pharmaceutical company for the first time. BioNTech secured the rights to DualityBio’s HER2 ADC candidate DB-1303 and B7H3 ADC candidate DB-1311 with an upfront payment of $170 million and potential milestone payments exceeding $1.5 billion. This licensing deal marked BioNTech’s inaugural entry into the ADC field, yet it chose HER2, the most competitively crowded target in the ADC landscape, clearly indicating its high expectations for DualityBio’s products.

Since then, DualityBio has entered into multiple licensing deals, effectively exhausting its pipeline of clinical-stage ADC assets. Through collaborations with major pharmaceutical companies such as BioNTech, Adcendo, BeiGene, Sinotau Pharmaceuticals, and Harbour Biomed, DualityBio has secured substantial upfront payments and a continuous stream of milestone payments, with the total transaction value exceeding $6 billion (including upfront and subsequent milestone payments).

As revealed in the prospectus, BD transactions constitute the core revenue source for DualityBio. In 2024, DualityBio reported revenue of RMB 1.941 billion, representing an 8.6% year-on-year increase from RMB 1.787 billion in 2023. This growth was primarily driven by license-out income, including upfront payments, milestone payments, and R&D cost reimbursements.

Although the company has continuously secured license-out deals, the majority of the proceeds received to date have been upfront payments. Meanwhile, the advancement of DualityBio’s pipeline requires sustained financial support. According to the prospectus, DualityBio’s R&D costs and expenses amounted to RMB 987 million and RMB 1.993 billion in 2023 and 2024, respectively.

Amid intensifying competition in the antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) sector, the key to DualityBio’s future value lies in its ability to swiftly realize the potential of its business development (BD) pipeline. For instance, two ADC candidates licensed to BioNTech commanded an upfront payment of $170 million, with subsequent potential milestone payments exceeding $1.5 billion. Similarly, the licensing deal for DB-1418 with Avenzo included a $50 million upfront payment, with total transaction value reaching up to $1.15 billion. The achievement of these subsequent milestone payments will directly impact DualityBio’s future development.

Furthermore, its core product, DB-1303, is expected to file for accelerated approval with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2025; whether it can successfully launch and generate sales will also be key to turning losses into profits. In the future, if DualityBio continues to make breakthroughs in clinical development, commercialization, and international cooperation, it has the potential to become a global leader in the antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) field.