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Article: New Antibody-Drug Combination Uses Therapeutic Role Reversal.
- Article from:
- BIOWORLD Today
- Article date:
- November 3, 2009
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2009 A Thomson Healthcare Company. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Science Editor
The first thing that comes to mind as an advantage of antibodies is their specificity. The reason monoclonal antibodies such as Genentech Inc.'s Avastin and Biogen Idec Inc.'s Zevalin are hailed is that they are more specific than small molecules and chemotherapy drugs.
That specificity also has led to the use of antibody-small molecule combinations. In their current incarnation, such couplings use the antibody to provide targeting specificity and the small molecule to boost efficacy. One example is Branford, Conn.-based CuraGen Corp.'s CR011-vcMMAE, a fully human monoclonal antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) that received the FDA go-ahead to ...