Abstract

Antibody Drug Conjugates beyond Cancer Therapeutics

Pazhanimuthu Annamalai, Managing Director, AURA Biotechnologies Pvt Ltd

Antibody–drug conjugates (ADCs) use monoclonal antibodies to selectively deliver potent cytotoxic drug to antigen-expressing tumor cells, which has shown clinical success for cancer treatment. However, ADCs have limited success due to target and safety. Very few applications have been explored outside the field of oncology utilizing non-anticancer drugs. Recently, there are few explorations have been reported in this area. The new approaches are including immunology and anti-infective. With these promising success it opens a new arena for the ADCs. The hypothesis is to avoid the off-target toxicities, non-specificities and delivering the poor pharmacokinetic drugs to the target. For instance, many potent antibiotic candidates displayed broad spectrum activity against pathogens including intracellular organisms have failed in clinical trials due to undesired pharmacokinetic profiles. This could be approached through ADC to deliver the molecules at target site. Despite initial success of ADCs for oncology, it remains a great challenge to develop the demonstrate the clinical efficacy and safety. Current preclinical models may not be adequate to predict ADC efficacy and toxicity in humans while long terms administration. More efficient preclinical models are needed to further measure the effectiveness and risks of ADC molecules to translate preclinical studies to clinical trials.