Antibody-Drug-Conjugates for Breast Cancer

Background Despite the advances that have been made to improve conventional chemotherapies, their use is limited by a narrow therapeutic window based on off-target toxicities. Antibody-drug-conjugates (ADCs) are composed of an antibody and a toxic payload covalently coupled by a chemical linker. They constitute an elegant means to tackle the limitations of conventional chemotherapeutics by selectively delivering a highly toxic payload directly to target cells and thereby increasing efficacy of the delivered cytotoxic but at the same time limiting systemic exposure and toxicities. As such they appear inspired by Paul Ehrlich ´s concept of a “magic bullet”, which he envisioned as drugs that go directly to their target to attack pathogens but remain harmless in healthy tissues. Summary The concept of conjugating drugs to antibodies via chemical linkers is not new. As early as in the 1960s researchers started to inves tigate such ADCs in animal models and first clinical trials based on mouse antibodies began in the 1980s. Although the concept appears relatively straightforward, ADCs are highly complex molecules, and it took several decades of research and development until the first ADC became approved by the FD A in 2000 and the second followed not until 11 years later. The development of an effective ADC is highly demanding, and each individual component of an ADC must be optimized: the target, the antibody, the linker and its conjugation chemistry as well as the cytoto...
Source: Oncology Research and Treatment - Category: Cancer & Oncology Source Type: research