Bispecific Antibody: Next Big Thing in Oncology Treatment

Posted by Candy Swift on December 28th, 2021

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized the first monoclonal antibody to treat cancer in 1997, ushering in a new age of therapies for patients. Human monoclonal antibody therapies are among the fastest-growing categories in the cancer pipeline, with more than 570 agents in clinical development.

Now, a new type of antibody-based therapy may overcome the limitations of monoclonal antibodies, and it has the potential to disrupt the current treatment paradigm in oncology. Scientists are now looking into creating antibodies that could attach to two distinct targets at the same time. These bispecific antibodies were thought to have the ability to treat a variety of diseases.

The Science Behind Bispecific Antibody

Antibody therapies are highly flexible; they can be easily produced and developed, with a high rate of effectiveness, and are typically well tolerated by patients. After the success of monoclonal antibodies, researchers explored how to develop bispecific antibodies for numerous therapeutic uses.

Bispecific antibodies, on the other hand, are more complicated proteins that might be difficult to design and manufacture. Both \"halves\" of a Y-shaped molecule in a monoclonal antibody are identical and bind to the same antigen target, while bispecific antibodies have two parts that are distinct, allowing them to attach to 2 distinct targets at the same time.

Over time, scientists worked to simplify and improve bispecific antibody engineering, as well as design a method that would allow it to be applied to a wide spectrum of disorders. It\'s possible to construct therapy solutions that are highly customized to the disease and the clinical situation using more than 100 bispecific antibody forms.

What the Future of Bispecific Antibodies May Hold

Bispecific antibodies have changed the way scientists assess the possibility for therapeutic precision, flexibility, and how and where therapies are given. Several late-stage bispecific antibodies are showing potential as a novel therapeutic category in blood cancer. They are injected intravenously or subcutaneously and are prepared as standardized therapy solutions. 

It is well understood that no single drug can win the war against cancer. Combination of multiple remedies is the current trend in cancer treatment. The application of bispecific antibodies mixing with existing and future treatments should improve upon the outstanding response rates and durability reported in early studies. Bispecific antibodies might also be included into chemotherapy-free regimens and chemotherapy de-escalation, which reduces the dose, duration, and frequency of chemotherapy. 

As for future research directions, researchers are examining strategies to overcome challenges such as cytokine release syndrome (CRS), the blood-brain barrier, emerging resistance, or whether these antibodies can be encapsulated and supplied orally.

In a word, bispecific antibodies are now widely recognized as a powerful class of medicines poised to offer more precise, personalized treatment options to people living with a variety of diseases, including various types of cancer.