Next, let's turn our attention to the international stage and first focus on AbbVie's latest merger and acquisition.

On December 13, AbbVie announced that it would acquire privately held company Nimble Therapeutics for $200 million in cash, targeting a preclinical development of an investigational oral peptide IL23R inhibitor for the treatment of psoriasis, as well as other new oral peptide products for various autoimmune diseases.

This also highlights a trend that the oral peptide market is beginning to rise in the autoimmune treatment market. In the field of oral peptide IL23R inhibitors, there was good news in November: Johnson & Johnson announced that the ICONIC-LEAD clinical study obtained top-line results, which means that the world's first targeted oral peptide Icotrokinra that selectively blocks IL-23 receptors will soon be on the market.

From a clinical positioning perspective, oral peptide drugs are a good supplement to injectable preparations due to their compliance advantages.

From an efficacy perspective, oral preparations do not have an advantage. For example, the proportion of patients with PASI 90 after 16 weeks of using risankizumab reached 65.6%, which is comparable to the effect of icotrokinra for 24 weeks.

However, the advantages of oral preparations can still complement Johnson & Johnson's existing pipeline. Liza O'Dowd, vice president of Johnson & Johnson, said that icotrokinra may help meet the needs and preferences of patients with plaque psoriasis.

Judging from the exploration of giants such as AbbVie, this is obviously not the idea of Johnson & Johnson alone. In the future, in this field, which domestic pharmaceutical companies can keep up?

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